09 September 2013

I'm Blue If I Was Green I Would Die

 Good luck getting that one out of your head now. :)

 Happy Monday, readers! Nevermind. Mondays are never happy. But hey, every day above ground is a good one, right?! 

 Last weekend I shared with you this Insta photo , & I'm finally here to share my current favorite part of our house. The front door, yo!


I'm so in love. Seriously. In love. What we thought would take us Friday night only...ended up taking the entire 3 day weekend, but every time I pull up to our home I say a silent worth it!

Since there are 5021 different tutorials out there on how to paint a door, I won't go into extreme detail...but I will share some things that helped us along the way.

First of all...this is going to take you a long time. Way longer than you think. I just want to throw that out there now.

First, go down to Lowes, and pick up the following supplies:
  • A high quality paint brush
  • A high quality paint roller
  • outdoor primer
  • outdoor paint + primer (if you want a really, really good coverage)
  • TSP (a bomb.com cleaner that literally cleans like you wouldn't imagine)
  • Liquid Deglosser
  • painters tape
  • patience pills (they don't sell these at Lowes; actually...i'm not sure they sell em anywhere. If you know a place...hook a sista up :) )
I took off from work a little early last Friday, and Jake and I went down to Lowes to start stock piling. When we got home, the first thing we did was mix up our TSP solution (just DO IT...you won't regret it) and we completely scrubbed down the door + trim. It's outside...and it was gross. I'm talking cobwebs and bugs and more bug juice. Just gross.

After you give your door the ol' scrub-down take your Liquid Deglosser


and a rag, and begin stripping the door + trim. Jake did this part. That stuff is STINK-Y. (Emphasis on the Y). I sat in the driveway and cheered him on.


Once you start deglossing, you want to be ready to roll with your primer. (Total pun intended). Basically, if you wait overnight everything you stripped off with the deglosser with dry hard again and you'll have to repeat the step. Start priming as soon as the deglosser is dry to the touch



One giant mistake we made was doing the door one day, the trim the next. The door was actually pretty easy. Nothing too crazy...the trim sucked. Sucked big time. (I'm trying to think of a Metaphor for how much it sucked...but i'm only coming up with inappropriate jokes that I don't want my Grandma to read. tee-hee-hee) Another mistake we made was taping off the hardware instead of removing it. Just take it off. We ended up doing this the next day anyway.

After your primer coat is on...head down to get some Mexican food


When you get back...you're ready to paint...heck ya!

We started by rolling all 6 panels, as well as the trim, and then we cut in with the brush. The paint we used was Valspar Fun & Games. This is what it looked like after one coat:

We were trying to decide if we wanted to paint the trim white or blue...white won!


For some reason, that up close picture screams HOLY BLUE DOOR! But if you look from the street it wasn't that bright at all. I knew I was in love after that first coat. By then it was getting dark, so we called it a night and said we'd paint the second coat in the morning.  At 6 AM the next day I was a kid on Christmas morning, ready to see how it looked in the daylight. (Which was terrible...it totally needed a second coat).



So she got her second coat, and now she is glorious! I absolutely love her. For the trim, we followed all of the above steps but used white paint instead:

Country boy shake it for me ;)

Now for a before and after, yeah?

Sorry for the blurry before...it's all I had!

BOOM! KA-POW! HUGE difference! Our door is totally the smiley face on the front of our cookie cutter house now. My heart twerks with delight everytime I pull in. :) Keep in mind...other than the door, this area hasn't been touched. We had gutters installed Friday...finally woo-hoo! So now I can start styling the front porch. Awww yeah.




Stay tuned for another Word tutorial, a kitchen update, & gift idea the rest of the week!

Until next time,

Kylie



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21 comments:

  1. Ok, so now you are making me think that I need to do my front door too... I don't like the color it is at the moment, don't know that I ever liked it, but hubby does, so now I have to convince him it needs to be repainted (it has been over 10 years, so that should be reason enough, right?).

    Glad to visit, am now following you.
    Hugs, antonella :-)

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  2. That blue is so cheerful! Great job! When we painted our door I thought it was going to be an easy peasy one-day job and I was so wrong. It's one of those hurry-up-and-wait kind of jobs, but the payoff is awesome.

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  3. PS Kylie: I nominated you for a Liebster Award--didn't see if you had been nominated yet. Check out the blog for details!

    http://whimsyrenee.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-liebster-award-or-one-where-i-go.html

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  4. Love that blue, Kylie! Nice job :D

    ~Cathy~

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  5. Wow, I LOVE the color! When I get a house, I'll definitely paint the door a bright color. I love your wreath too!! New follower from The Collective blog hop :)

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  6. WOW great job!!! What a great colour for a front door. I really like how it stands out and makes the house pop out.

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  7. That door looks awesome! I'm getting ready to paint mine, but I have the good fortune of starting with a newly-factorily-primed door, so I don't have to go through the torturous biz of killing spiders and scrubbing it down with deglosser. I'm going with a yummy color of red, and I have a sweet (almost-new) sprayer. It shall be loads of fun!

    -andi

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  8. how can you not be in a great mood coming through that happy door?!! great choice!

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  9. It's that easy? I was just thinking today that I'd like my door a different color. I doubt my hubby will agree though!

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  10. Love, love, love this colour...so bright and cheery!

    Your home looks gorgeous!

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  11. It looks awesome! I love the color - you did a great job. My hubs and I want to paint ours black, but like you confirmed - I was worried about how long it would take - and how do you close the door while it's wet????? Do you leave it open overnight and what if it rains, or the boogie man gets in??? LOL! BUT, yours looks so good, maybe we should take the plunge! Thank you for sharing, Julia

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  13. What a super wonderful update to your curb appeal. Now, I have to decide what color we will try. Thank you for the inspiration. ~Kelly

    unDeniably Domestic

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  14. Gorgeous color choice! Thanks for linking up to Suburbsmama

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  15. Whenever I get to move from an apt to a house, this is my #1 to do project! Paint a fun, cheery, welcoming front door. Love the color, too!

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  16. Whenever I get to move from an apt to a house, this is my #1 to do project! Paint a fun, cheery, welcoming front door. Love the color, too!

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  17. What a great project you have done on the door. I saw you blog on another one and it caught my eye right away. Fantastic tutorial! I would love to have you to link up at my weekly Clever Chicks Blog Hop: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/09/clever-chicks-blog-hop-54-with-two.html





    I hope you can make it!
    Cheers,
    Kathy Shea Mormino

    The Chicken Chick

    http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/

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  18. It's much easier to finish a project when you have someone to help you, especially one who knows the basics of painting. It looks like both of you had a fun time repainting your front door! All in all, it was an awesome job! Congrats!

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  19. The second coat really did wonders to it. The first one was too light, and you can really see it from the up-close pictures. And at first I wondered why you went with white rather than paint the whole thing blue, but it does look better with the white trim framing the blue door. Enjoy your wonderful new door!

    Tona @ Integrity Alaska

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