The Red Front Door

As little girls, I think we all dream of what our home will be like.  Along with dreaming of the perfect man you'll marry, the children you will {hopefully} be blessed with, the dream wedding, there is the ever so important, dream home.  For most of us, that image in our mind, changed as we got older, and we got a dose of reality. Once you realize that you can't afford an $8million home, you begin to revise that dream. Well, for me, there were always a few things that stayed the same.  One being a red front door.  When my husband and I began looking for houses, he wanted something turn-key/move-in ready...aka no work to be done at all.  Well, as you already know, that is how this blog got started.  So now lets move on to what I did and how I did it so CHEAP!

{You can see the photos of our home pre-move in under the home improvement/ DIY tab at the top of the page.}

I was originally going to wait until around September or October to paint our front door, since it's super hot here during the summer but thanks to a random storm last night, it was only in the high 80's this morning.  Plus, thanks to my sister-in-law, Jodie, I got the paint for free since she already had it.  I also got some great tips on what to do and how to do it from her.  Since I already had the roller and paint brushes, my grand total: $0.  How's that for thrifty?

Step 1: Create a ninja-dog proof wall to keep from having a red maltipoo...she loves to see what is going on, which sadly, means she has to be kept in the back of the house.  She was pissed...but finally went and took a nap.

Step 2:  Clean your door!  I used rubbing alcohol to clean it after I took a hose to the entire thing.  Super simple.  There was no need to sand the door, as it had been painted originally and no longer had the metal finish.  Then it was tape time.

I was going to paint the white trim too, but decided against it since all the trim on the outside of our house is white, I thought it would look nice to keep it white.

Step 3:  Get your paint together, drop cloths, everything.  I prefer to use a 6 inch roller, and I have a handy little paint pan that is hand held.  I really like it since I don't have to worry as much about drips going to and from my paint.

Step 4:  Paint the detailed areas...for me that was the grooves.  This is the ONLY place I used a brush.  If you use a brush on the entire door, you will be stuck with brush marks.

For the rest of the door, I used a textured paint roller.  Why?  Because it covered it really well but left it kind of bumpy.  I'm no painter, nor am I perfect, so this gave me some wiggle room for mistakes.

Step 5:  Paint your door!

{Keep in mind the door is wet in this photo!}

Grab a fan, it makes dry time go way faster!

I did two coats of paint on the door.  It looks pretty good.  I let the tape stay on there for about 2 hours after I was finished painting.  It only takes a little time to dry, so I checked the edges before I shut the door.

Final product:

Still wet in the middle and the detailed areas, but looks pretty good.

Final product from the street:

Please pay no mind to my dead yard, it's super dry here!  I'd say it turned out pretty good.  Now if I can convince the hubs that we need to paint the shutters.  Another day maybe. 

This project was super easy and only took about an hour to do! 

Happy Friday!!