Front Door Blues, Part I

The other weekend E and I got an itching to whip out those paint brushes again and tackle a weekend project. We've been slowly and steadily tediously painting the wood trim throughout our house, and already painted almost all of the walls when we moved in two years ago, so there really isn't that much left to paint. But after reading a few other home improvement blogs (like this one) I felt inspired to spruce up our front door. After all, the front door is actually quite an important part of your house, and according to feng shui experts, is where energy flows in and out. Not to mention it's the first impression someone gets of your house, so why not make it reflect a little of your personality or style?

Although I love the idea of cheerful yellow door, we have beige siding, so that wouldn't help the door pop. Since we have a red roof we thought a red door might work well, but we ended up choosing a dark blue to add some depth to our house. In case you're curious, a blue front door in feng shui represents water and abundance, and is thought to invoke a sense of security, tranquility, and trust. (read more here). We'll have to let you know if we agree, after we test it out!

Here's the color we chose: Planetarium (the darkest chip)

Helpful tip: use a hammer and nail to punch little holes inside the can. This way the lip of the can won't get caked with dried up paint, especially if you plan on reusing the paint on a few occasions. 

Here's our supplies, thanks to the advice of the guys in orange (aka the Home Depot paint station workers)

Behr's Premium Plus Ultra Paint and Primer in One

High density foam roller

my handy dandy sherwin williams tight-spot short-handled brush

And here's what we started with (house numbers removed for safety reasons, and I have no idea why there's a can of bug spray on the front steps or why our little "fisher-price" light is on ... can't wait to update that, although Evan claims it's cute):

We're planning on getting a new storm door somewhere down the line, possibly from a used or outlet store like BMO. It would be nice to actually show off the new blue door with one of those full-glass storm doors. 

Let the painting begin!

Now here's where we started singing the blues ... the blue paint didn't cover very evenly! I don't know if it was using a dark paint over white, the foam roller, or some other unknown problem, but this is what the door looked like after about 2 or 3 coats and then five full coats:

 

It's safe to say this door needs a few more thin and even coats before we can call her done. Hopefully after I work on her a little more this afternoon, she'll look something like this (minus the wreath and the fancy molding):

Needless to say, to be continued ....

Blue door on brick house from here.