Painting the Front Door

I'm feeling the need to work to make this old house of ours a bit more welcoming.  Almost nothing we have done during our renovation has been purely esthetic ... it's been 10 years of time and money spent mostly on things like roofing, electrical, plumbing, plaster, blah, blah, blah ... very little of which gives a satisfied feeling of immediate gratification.  Here is what I decided to work on this week.

Our entrance could be really lovely ... we have a huge front door and beautiful leaded glass.  I hate to admit this, but the only thing I have done to the front door in whole time we have owned this place is wash off spiderwebs and dirt from time to time.  Here is the view of the door in question, before I did anything to it yesterday morning.

It looks okay from a distance, so let's go a little closer and see the real story ... grime and flakes and places where the paint is completely worn through. 

Yesterday morning, I gathered my tools and jumped right into the job.  First, I scraped off any loose paint.  I thought about grabbing my heat gun and stripping all the paint off the door and starting fresh (like I have done on the moldings inside the house), but I decided to work with what's on the door already.  Something inside me felt a bit guilty about the potential to wipe out the door's 160+ years of history.

After I scraped and sanded, this is what I had.  I have to keep reminding myself ... it has to get worse before it can be better.

Next, I took my trusty can of Kilz and finished work day #1 by applying a thorough coat of primer to the whole door ... two coats to all of the spots of bare wood.

Normally when I paint a door, I remove the knob and any other hardware.  In this case, all I could get off  was the door knocker.  The knocker's striker plate is stuck, and I can't figure out how to remove the keyhole or the handle for the rim lock.  With all of that still in place, I figured it would be silly to remove the doorknob ... so I taped around everything and called it good.

If you look closely at the reflection in the sidelights in the photo above, you can see why my workday was cut short ... that sky was really black and ominous and it rained and stormed for the rest of the day.  Not good painting weather.

Day 2 dawned dreary and rainy, and I had little hope for finishing my door project.  By mid-morning, though, the rain stopped and the sky cleared ... and it was dry enough by early afternoon to start applying color to the door.

Choosing that color has been a long process.  I knew that I wanted some sort of greenish blue, but it took a while to find the exact right one that had presence and depth, and that coordinated well with the brownish orange of our brick home.  My choice is Farrow and Ball's 'Oval Room Blue', color matched in Valspar Ultra Premium, in a satin finish.

This choice of color has not come without a little bit of drama.  Two of our daughters have expressed their displeasure at the fact that this house won't have a red door ... our houses have ALWAYS had red doors, and the girls have done everything they can to try to convince me not to paint the door of this house blue.  To be honest, I thought about red.  I brought home color chips and tried to convince myself that I could be happy with some sort of red on this door ... but I couldn't do it. 

Also, as far as I can tell, this door has always worn some sort of white paint.  There are layers of white, cream, beige, more white ... and nothing with any color to speak of.  Part of me hesitated to make the leap to a new color.  After I thought about it for a while, I decided to go ahead with the blue ... I realized that I have always made each renovation decision out of a profound respect for this house, this decision included.  (The white paint is still there for others to find, if they choose to go looking.)

Back to the play by play ....

The primer raised the grain of the wood a bit, so I gave the door a quick once-over with a fine grit sanding block.  This gave me a silky smooth surface, and will make the finished paint job look a whole lot nicer.  As I applied the first few strokes of 'Oval Room Blue', I knew immediately that I had made the correct choice.

What do you think?

I had company while I was painting.  Alice and Dorothy were right there, keeping an eye on things.  Like the good housecats they are, neither of them had so much as an inclination to go any closer toward the door.

This is where things stand as of now.  I'm not finished yet.  I have some cracks to caulk and another coat of paint to apply, but I am thrilled with how the project is turning out so far. 

Hello, blue door.  I'm very glad to see you!

Fiddling with Photoshop ... the Front of Our House

There were no cars parked in front of our house yesterday morning when I went out to check for hurricane damage.  (One of The Husband's things on his storm preparation list was to move our cars away from potential falling limbs, because we have large trees in our front yard.)  With no cars in the way, and the sun shining, I took the opportunity to get a really good, straight ahead photo of the front of our house ... then I came in and went to work with Photoshop to visualize my plans to improve our curb appeal.

This is the photo I took, showing the unedited truth of what our house looks like when we pull in the driveway.  It looks good ... but a bit bare.

Here is the imaginary 'after' photo ... showing boxwood bushes, my design for gingerbread for the front porch, and the new color of the front door.  (Highlighted words are links to previous posts)

It's a lot better, isn't it? 

As soon as the ground dries out enough for me to dig the holes for the new bushes, I will go to the nursery and pick them up  (The bushes are already paid for.  I tagged them and left them at the nursery until we were ready to plant them.)

It's going to take a while to make the actual house look like my rendering.  This has been quite a process ... and it's wonderful to finally see the results ... even if it only exists in Photoshop right now.