Our New Painted Door

We have lived here for 6 years. I have talked about the boring front door for all of them. Our new normal of forced “Social Distancing” seemed like a good a time as any to get a “new” painted door.

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The weather forecast was finally looking up after what seemed like a long and wet winter. As I dropped my children off at the bus stop, (on what would turn out to be their last day of school for quite a while), I said out loud “I think I will paint the front door today.”

As we talked about colors, my son piped up with “How about rainbow?”

Being one who adores fun uses of color, rainbow sounded like a spectacular idea.

For a project like this, the sample sizes of paint at Home Depot are perfect! Eight ounces of paint is more than enough to probably paint the whole front door, and more than enough for one stripe.

Before you begin any paint project, you want to assess your surface, from a distance, the front door didn’t look so bad…

It’s when you get up close, you start to really see the flaws:

Not yet? Ok, how about this? From the weathering on the trim, I am pretty sure this door jam had never been painted after it was installed.

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We really don’t use our front door so I was pretty unaware of how bad it really was. Part of it is a quick paint job to get the house on the market originally I assume, and part of it is wear and tear on a fiberglass door. It was time for a refresh for sure!

Once I cleaned the whole thing and gave it a quick scuff sand, I marked out my lines with a watercolor pencil.

Quick tip: Watercolor pencils are great to have on hand when you’re painting, because leftover marks can be wiped away with a wet rag.

Then I used Frog Tape to follow the pencil line. Frog Tape is the best when you need a crisp line. Firmly pressing down on the edge (it’s called burnishing) is the most important step when using painting tape. It really “seals” the tape against the surface and prevents leaking when you start painting.

I like to pull off the tape while the paint is still a bit damp. If you wait until it’s fully dry, you need to score it with a utility knife first.

I had gotten a bit of a later start than I had intended so at the end of day one, this is where I had to leave it.

WAY more like a circus tent than a rainbow… at this point, I was also rethinking the white trim around the door.

The next day it rained… and then the next day was too humid. My impatience was getting the best of me. I managed to wait out the weather and finally a second perfect day arrived!

The first lines were re-taped to get ready for the rest and then the fun began.

Finally it was starting to look less circus-y and more happy.

While that dried, I taped off the trim around the door, and gave that a refresh too.

The speed of drying and the smooth finish are really impressive! I would absolutely recommend the Behr Marquee line at Home Depot if you want a painted door.

After removing all the tape, this is the new painted door:

Of course once you paint one thing, you see all the things around it that now need to be done. For instance, that bush on the right is coming out in a few weeks, and the house probably needs a good power washing too. Good News is, with our new friend, COVID-19, it looks like we should have plenty of time to get things done.

No one has really seen it yet in person except our Airbnb guests. At this rate, I might end up with a new house inside by the time this is over. And to think, it all started with a Painted Door….

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