Saturday, June 21, 2014

Front Door Makeover

When we moved into our house almost two and a half years ago, I had grand plans to get rid of all the lovely, shiny gold that seemed to gleam from every available metal surface. Door knobs, shower doors, toilet handles. It was inescapable. To be fair, it was not EVERY metal surface. The faucet in the kitchen was silver. Annnndd....that's about it.

Just one hideous example the gold that was plaguing my life.
Don't get me wrong. I love gold. As jewelry. And bars. As my hardware...not so much. But I seemed to have grown immune to the ever present brilliance that surrounded me. The gold was slowly blinding me to the fact that it was really, really awful.

I imagine this front door saying "Well, come on in, I guess" in a sad Eeyore voice.
 Luckily, the columns on our front porch developed wood rot. That is not usually a sentence that starts with "luckily" but hear me out. Because we had to replace the wood pedestals the columns rested on, we had to rip up the tile. Because we ripped up the tile, we had to lay new tile. And if I was getting new tile, I was sure not going to spoil the beauty of that with gold fixtures outside. {Kind of a If You Give a Mouse a Cookie type of situation.} The spell was broken! Huzzah! 



I decided to save some money and go the good ole spray paint route to rid myself of the gold. Outside, I had two gold light fixtures flanking the door and a gold door knob and deadbolt.

 

I first cleaned them all really well (which they desperately needed) with a degreaser. Then lightly sanded them all with steel wool, just to rough them up a bit (so the paint would stick better not because they owed me money). After that, I taped the beejusus out of them. Using Frog Tape (seriously, the BEST paint tape EVER), I taped around the base of the lights, where they attached to the brick.


Then, I taped over the glass.


After, I went back with an exacto knife and cut around the glass panes.

 

 

This way I got very clean lines for spray painting.


To protect the brick and surrounding wood areas, I just taped up a whole mess of newspaper. I'm sure my neighbors were thrilled with this lovely look.


Once everything was protected, I used the much-beloved Rustoleum Oil-Rubbed Bronze spray paint and after several very light coats, I was done!

 

 The lights looked about 1,000% better. No exaggeration. (Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration. But dang, they did look really good.)


Now on to the door handle! I taped very carefully around the lock and the door handle, using little pieces of tape to make sure the door was completely covered.


 I also taped up another barrier of newspaper around the door. Before I began spray-painting, I put a spare key in the lock, to prevent the spray paint from getting into the key hole and causing any sticking. I kept it there the whole time I was painting. {BONUS: Now my spare key is marked and I know which one it is.}


So now the gold is completely gone from the outside of my house! But I couldn't stop there!


I decided to paint my front door too.  My husband removed the door and we laid it flat in the house and primed it, let it dry, rehung it, and then removed it the next night to paint it this fantastic shade of blue. Honestly, my husband did most of the front door painting and since he really, really despises painting, I wanted to give him a public shout-out and say THANK YOU!


Because, y'all, I LOVE my new front door. The color is Venezuelan Sea from Benjamin Moore and it is such a vivid, vibrant, almost juicy color. It is so much more welcoming than the sad brown color it was before.


As I said at the beginning at the post, we had to rip up all the old tile on our porch in order to repair the columns out front. We decided to replace the ugly, old tile with this gorgeous wood tile. {We did the demo and removed the tile but had a professional install the new tile.}

 

Have you seen this before? It looks just like wood, with wood grain, variant colors and even wood texture...but it's tile. Which means easy clean, no worries about scratching and it can go outside.


I am so happy with this wood tile. I love that my front porch looks like wood but without the worry of wood rot or resealing the wood.


Now our front door and porch look amazing! I love it when a simple project, like getting rid of the gold fixtures, turns out to have such a big impact and propels you to change the space even more than you originally intended.

And now, the before and after shot!



  What a difference a little bit of paint can make!



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7 comments:

  1. I love the wood looking tile, every time I'm in Home Depot I ohh and ahh over it. :) Also, your fixtures totally look new! Don't you love spray paint?

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    1. I know! I had been lusting after the wood tile for a long time...I was so happy to finally be able to use it! And yes-- I have a deep abiding love for spray paint. :)

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  2. THIS IS A FANTASTIC MAKEOVER! I love the wood tile look porch… Fantastic! I am going to go buy that blue soon, I have a ton of projects and I think need that color!! Found you over at Dedicated House! Super cute!! If you have a chance, please check out my site at www.idreamofjeannedesign.com!
    Have a great day!
    Jeanne

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    1. Thank you so much, Jeanne! I can't get enough of my blue door--definitely the perfect color (for me, anyways!). Heading over to check out your blog now! :)

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  3. Bam!!! What an entrance, very inviting!!! Love the color, I would be too scared to go so bold but it looks awesome. The fixtures were meant to be painted!!! We just installed the faux wood tiles in our kitchen but in the weathered gray color, LOVE!!! Great job!

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    1. Thank you, Tracy!! I must admit when I opened the paint can to actually paint the door I had a "what am I doing?" moment but I am so glad I went with the color. Since it's outside, I think it's the perfect way to ease into a bold color choice. And now that we have the faux wood outside, we are really wanting it inside too! Can you say "bathroom makeover"? haha! :)

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  4. This is such an amazing transformation! It looks spectacular!

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