{outdoors: part two- painting front door}

You've seen the shutters go, now time for the matching front door! The door was the same color as the old shutters, that maroon color I just couldn't live with anymore. Using Sherwin-Williams' Color Visualizer on their website, I uploaded a picture of the house and played around with the shutters and front door to find the colors I wanted. Since our house is basically cut in half in the front view with the garage, the color was going to be very concentrated on one side and then the garage is all white on the other. I wanted to balance it out a little more, so I decided on the color Greek Villa for the front door instead of matching it to the shutters. Supa fresh. Here's the process, my first time painting a door. FYI, my door is wood, not steel. Using a sprayer would probably be a better idea for steel.

Supplies:

Exterior primer and paint (Quarts will do)
paint brush
4" foam roller (best type of roller ever!)
power sander
wet rag/sheets for clean up

Original door, sheets down for sanding, doorknob not removed yet.

power sander! i used a very rough grit, don't remember what number, it was low. you should also use a fine grit to smooth it out before painting.

Just look at this nonsense!! Supposedly this was painted by a professional? Ugh. I also used this opportunity to clean this mess up by painting the side.

Door is sanded. It's not necessary to take off all the existing paint, only to take off the gloss of the existing paint and smooth the surface. You can use individual sandpaper pieces to get in the crevices, like the picture below.

crevices!

Be sure to wipe all the debris off of the door with a wet rag between sanding and painting!

This is where the fun begins! I took a 2" wide, thin artist brush and put on 2 thin coats of primer in all the crevices of the door. You can't let the paint pool anywhere, or it will dry that way and you'll have bumps, that's why the thin layers are important. Do this anywhere the roller won't fit with the primer and paint.

close-up of crevices

This is the primer I used. I used primer because my door was so dark, and I wanted the paint to come out as quality as possible!

THIS is the important part!! I'd never used or heard of these foam rollers before, but they are AWESOME. I'll be using them for many other things, I'm sure. Sorry this one is blue, I used it for something else, incidentally- this is the roller I would've used for the shutters if I'd known before! You'll find the handle in the same section of the store.

STEPS:

 1) Use brush to prime crevices.

2)Use roller to prime door. Repeat 1 & 2 for another coat.

3) Use brush to paint crevices.

4) Use roller to paint door- thin, smooth layers, going in different directions as if you were painting a wall. Repeat 3 & 4 for another coat.

 *BE SURE TO dry each coat before painting another**

Here's the painted door, behind my hideous storm door lol. I thought it looked too plain! A friend suggested I paint the door yellow, and I loved that idea, but I just thought it would be too much. I decided to just accent it with yellow.

I took an artist brush and painted the ridges and accented the architectural elements of the door. This took way too long. It was a lot more difficult than I anticipated. But I am very happy with the result!

Close-up!

Checking it out from the front. Gah! That door.

Not only did I re-paint the door, I ordered a new handle set that is GORGEOUS compared to my old one. LOVE.

TA-DAAA! Finished front door with the old one gone. New storm door coming, but definitely enjoyed this look while it lasted! Couldn't be happier with it, it's so different!

Would you ever take on changing the look of your house, now that you know how EASY AND FUN it is? Ha!

{outdoors: part one}

Hello! I've been working hard on the front of the house this summer, so there will be a series of 3 posts on how I've changed it. First up is the shutters! I'd never painted shutters before, so I'll tell you about what I learned and what I'd do differently next time (next time will be a long time from now hopefully lol).


This project took a good 1-2 weeks, when you count finding someone to take down the shutters, a couple coats of paint, and hanging back up. This post will be short so I don't have to re-live it all. :D

Here's what the house has looked like since my husband bought it a few years ago. We live in a bit of a cookie-cutter neighborhood, and I wanted to change the look of the house to be unique, but not stick out like an awesome sore thumb when it comes time to sell. SO lots of planning and negotiating with Ryan and I could get started!

Original plastic shutters taken down by a family friend whom I subsequently made cookies for as a BIG thank you! Taking down shutters is no easy task, at least for me. I was definitely not strong enough to do it, because you basically have to yank them out of the house. They are held in by Shutter-Loks, which are basically plastic nails that look like screws? It's weird, you'd never need to know until you want to take them down though. :) People have a lot of ways they take shutters down but yanking them out seems to be the best way to go.

Same shutters with one coat of Sherwin-Williams' "Plymouth Blue" color. I wanted a dark teal that was more blue than it was green, and I found it! I used a regular paint brush for all of it, but I'll tell you what I would do differently with it. I ended up with 3-4 coats of paint on each shutter!!

Close-up of shutter with one coat. Exterior paint is very sticky and different to work with than interior paint, just FYI.

This is what I would've done differently, if I'd known. I would have used a small foam roller on the sides, because the sides have no texture, and the brush doesn't work well on it. At this point, I was hot and tired and figured no one looks at shutters closely anyway! ;)

Here's the house with no shutters! Compared to the maroon, I even liked this better lol. **IMPORTANT TIP: When you take the shutters down, label their placement on the house for when you put them back up!! A lot of builders don't use a template to put the screws in shutters, and the holes could be in a bunch of different places, which means in my case a lot of frustration and crying when you try to put them back up!

One thing you'll definitely have to do if you take them down is get all new Shutter-Loks to put them back up. The Loks bend very easily and WILL break when you remove the shutter. GET EXTRAS!! If you are getting a standard color shutter, you may be able to find the color of Lok as well and not have to paint them. I had to paint, so I stuck them all in boxes so they'd stand and I could just paint the tops, which is the only part you see once they're up. 2 coats on these with a foam brush.                                     **TO PUT SHUTTERS BACK UP: Since you were smart and labeled where your shutters go back to, it'll be easy peasy. All you do is get a hammer (a rubber mallet would be best if you had one, it chips the paint less!!) and gently tap the new Shutter-Loks back into the house. Carefully, they are prone to bending!

Ta daaa! Shutters back up, sections by the door painted, just need a new front door! Which I got for my birthday, by the way :) New storm door and painting the front door is the next project coming on here so stay tuned if you want to know how to paint a front door! Yay.