Come on in!

I'm done! I'm done! I'm done!

Yes, the door! The only thing left to do is clean up a few dried on paint drips that landed in places that they shouldn't have.

So, just to refresh your memory...

Here is how the front door looked 2 weeks ago.

Ugly, ugly, ugly. Inviting? Uh NO!

Fast forward to 2 weeks later, lots of sanding, lots of priming, more sanding, caulking, cursing, sanding... more cursing... painting... and more cursing.

Here it is!

It no longer makes you want to run and hide! The kick plate I primed and  spray painted with metallic spray paint.

That is water on my front porch... Power washing is next on my list - the concrete that is, and not the front door. ;-)  I am so happy to be done with this project, I can't even tell you!

Here is the other side of the door - interior.

The interior side was painted with Benjamin Moore's Satin Impervo, that I already had on hand and that matched the paint on the trim and molding around the door. I used a Purdy 2 1/2" paint brush to get in the beveled edges and grooves, and then used a foam roller to roll the paint on the larger sections.

The exterior was primed with Sherwin Williams oil based for wood.

Then I painted it with Benjamin Moore's - MoorGlo® 100% Acrylic House & Trim Paint .

I only needed a small pint of paint. It was a nice paint to work with. In general, I am a big fan of Benjamin Moore paints. They are some of the better paints that I have worked with.

If you get up close, there are naturally lots of flaws and lots of mistakes. It is not perfect, far from it, but this is a huge improvement.
Linking to:

 

The End is Almost in Sight.

Getting very close to finishing the door. I had a mere 4 hours of sleep last night, then had to get up and get my youngest out the door for summer school. I also knew that it was going to be hot, hot, HOT today, so I needed to get some painting done on the front door.

I hopped in the car at 8:00 a.m. and drove to the home improvement store, picked up a can of Benjamin Moore exterior paint, made a quick detour into the garden section to buy a few more plants, and then home!

Eyes were heavy, but I guzzled a couple of cans of Diet Pepsi and just dug in and got to work.

Tired yes.

Done?

No.

But getting close. I am thinking of doing one more coat of paint tomorrow, and then calling that good.

Needless to say, I was a bit crabby and grouchy today, due to the heat and lack of sleep.

Here is just a teaser photo of the interior side of the front door.

Primer and all. It was in MUCH better shape than the other side of the door. I have a few touch up spots to finish, and then it will be done. The only obstacle that I ran into on this side, is that some of the crevices were filled in with clear silicone caulk.

That stuff does NOT like to be painted over.

Grr..

More sanding and more priming and I remedied the issue.

I primed the kick plate yesterday, and now I just need to spray paint it a metallic silver color. The brass was dated.

I also have plan to spray paint the exterior light fixtures and rid them of their brassy color.

The Front Door Saga...

I've been busy... working on that blasted front door. It hasn't been all that fun, I must tell you. Sanding, sanding and you guessed it - MORE SANDING. I am a bit  frustrated with the gouges in the wood and the dry rot. In the past week, I would work on it for a couple of hours each day, just until I had sawdust coming out of my hair, eyes and nose and was about ready to torch the thing!  Saturday, I found myself at the home improvement store pricing out doors, that is how close I was to giving up on this project.

Then reality hit... $$$... and I went back to working on the door. I have learned that when I get really frustrated, that is when it is time to take a break and walk away.

 I tried a wood filler epoxy over the weekend. Famowood Instant Wood Repair

Gotta say, it was a huge 'ole mess. Or rather I made a big mess of it! I managed to mess up the wood on the sidelight even more, and ended up with my right hand almost completely covered, on the palm side in this epoxy wood filler. I was finally able to get the stuff off of my hand today - several days later. Of course a normal patient person would have used some kind of protective glove when working with this goop. But I am impatient and not always the brightest bulb in the box.

Well, after that fiasco, the next day I got back to sanding again. At this point my palm sander has been going on overdrive and I have gone through 60 grit sandpaper like it is going out of style!  The Dremel has been very useful in getting into the grooves and cracks of the door, where it is almost impossible to do with sandpaper alone. This morning, I taped and prepped the area and spent 3.5 HOURS priming that blasted door, sidelight, frame and trim. The silver lining is that it was quite cool this morning, so it wasn't unbearably hot painting outside.

I used Sherwin William's Exterior Oil-Based Wood Primer.

Overall it is a good product, but it is oil, which means two things:

1. The door seemed to takes FOREVER to dry.

2. Oil based products are always  a pain to clean out of brushes, paint pans and other items.

I put the primer on a bit thick, so there are some goopy spots, but that is o.k. with me. My 9 year old also arrived home from summer school around noon, and decided to slam the door shut. There are some paint smears around the frame now. *sigh*  Oh well, nothing that sandpaper can't fix.

 I still have to fill in more spots with some painter's caulk and sand the heck out of it...again.

Already though, just being primed - the door looks so much better and my front entry looks a lot more inviting and cheerful. I stood back and admired it, and then admired it again when I was coming around the block in my car from being out an about.

I hope to have it done by Friday to reveal to you!

Here is the before picture again.

And here is what it looked like on Saturday after I had done some sanding.

At this point, I was only HALF way through with sanding it, if you can believe it! I was also starting to fill in some of the gouges and holes in the wood when this picture was taken. The door itself hasn't been too bad, but the wood on the sidelight is in pretty bad shape.

The brass kick plate will be getting spray painted some form of silver/ brushed nickel, to match the other hardware on the door.  So when I am ready to paint, the door will be painted white. The exterior of our house is a light pink, with white trim - think 1993 and the colors that were in style back then - country blues, mauves, pink and hunter green.

It's not my favorite color in the world for the house, but the paint is still in good condition and we will eventually get it painted - professionally.

On a side note, here is a vintage dresser that I picked up on Craigslist last week for $30.00.

I am guessing 1940's??? Any other guesses?

It has original casters on the bottom. The veneer is peeling off, so I took a heat gun to it and have already removed the veneer from two of the drawers. It was super easy and went quite quickly with the putty knife and heat gun.

When I am done with the front door, I will probably work on it some more.

Yep. It's a Door.

We have been in our house now for 2 years. It was built in 1993, and so the color scheme reflected as much when we purchased it. Think mauve and pinks EVERYWHERE.

The stain color on the kitchen cabinets, stair railing, doors is all one color, and this is what it looks like.

The door color doesn't quite go with the white trim.

I was feeling ambitious on Friday night, so I pulled out some Kilz latex primer and went to work.

Then Saturday I finished it by lightly sanding and painting the door with  some Benjamin Moore Satin Impervo

that I had on hand from a project 2 years ago.  Very nice paint, but very expensive. I think it averages $50 for a gallon and that is what I painted my French doors with, per my contractor's suggestions. But it is a nice paint to work with.

 Anyway... so here it is!

Huge improvement I think... It would be nice to have doors with some panels in them, but for now this works. To the right, you can get a tiny glimpse of my kitchen cabinet color... not my fave, but once it's not so hot and I can stomach working out in the garage in this heat wave, I may tackle the daunting task.

 Perhaps tomorrow I will reveal what is behind that door - if you don't already know. O.K.... no big secret. It's my half bath. I suppose if I lived in the South, we would call it a powder room?  In my neck of the woods, we just call it a half bath.  Anyway, it might be fun to show you what it look like before and what I have done with it so far.

So..........

One door down, 7  doors, 3 closet doors, 2 bathroom vanities and about 20 kitchen cabinets left to go.

Taking it all off...

A few weeks ago, I saw this coffee table advertised on Craigslist.

The top was a little rough, but it had nice lines, it was cheap - $15, I didn't have a coffee table, and after spending hours perusing over other's creative blogs, I knew I had the creative tools to transform this find into something I could use.

So onto refurbishing...

First came the lovely process of stripping off the top coat. It was a lot of work and took about 6 hours to fully strip it. I used an eco- friendly stripper ( that doesn't sound quite right - now does it? ) that didn't smell so toxic. My two daughters helped a long the way, doing some sanding etc. I wasn't quite sure what type of wood it was, but figured it was pretty soft wood. When it was completely stripped, I determined that it was pine, perfect for a first project.

Next came sanding, priming, and painting the legs. After several different tries, I settled on Rustoleums' Heirloom White - satin finish.

Then it was prepping the top surface with MinWax Pre Stain Wood Conditioner, which I already had on hand from another project. By the way, always follow directions on products. I decided to neglect the instructions on the can of Plastic Wood and filled the holes in BEFORE I stained it... It didn't work and was next to impossible to absorb the stain properly.

Finally, I did 3 separate applications of MinWax's Stain - Special Walnut. After that, if was MULTIPLE layers of MinWax's Polycrylic seal in a semi-gloss. It's a water based sealant that will take a beating more than the polyurethane, and won't yellow over time. Yes, I did learn all of these tips on the Internet... my lifeline.

So here is the finished project. Does it have lots of flaws? Oh yes, but it was fun and I learned a lot. So next on my wish list? A simple palm sander... electric of course. Doing things by hand takes awhile.