Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Back Door Before and After

I recently finished painting the back door and the trim that Doug finally put up. He took the door off so that I could do a really good job and he also repaired the deadbolt area where the firemen had broken in. I sure wish I'd thought to leave the door open or unlocked when I was leaving, but who thinks of such things at a time like that? Anyway, on the "before" picture below, you can still see what remains of the CONDEMNED sign that they stuck on the door the next day. Officially, our house is still condemned, although it doesn't look like it should be anymore.


Below is the "after" picture. The medium blue looks nicer with the blue ceiling than the faded dark green did. You can click on the picture to get a closer look. I'm very happy with how the threshold turned out too. I stained it with Cabot solid stain in a color called Spruce Blue. It sort of matches the green slate just inside the door.

This was the first time I had ever stained anything and it was actually pretty fun, especially since it ended up looking so nice. You can see a picture of it on the previous post. Now I'm thinking about staining the porch floor a light blue at some point. I think you are supposed to wait a year before staining pressure treated boards, so I'll wait. We still need to get the baseboard trim done anyway.



Here's a closeup of the trim around the outside of the door frame. Doug is glad that I talked him into putting it on now that he sees how nice it looks, and now that a few of his friends have complimented him on it. He did a great job with the reveal as well.


And in other news, here are the two rooms at the front of the house on the main floor that I recently painted. I'm pretty pleased with the way all of the different colors intersect. I guess I'll be decorating based on wall color rather than the other way around!

The colors are Faded Seafoam for the piano room, Wisteria for the foyer, and Sour Lime for the living room. Wild, huh?
Next up will be the completed front porch, balls and all. Stay tuned.....

5 comments:

Bowie Mike said...

The door and trim look great! Cyndy, what is your exterior door made of? Is it metal or fiberglass? My wife was thinking about painting ours, and it's fiberglass. I wasn't sure how it would come out.

Cyndy said...

Mike - It's kind of ironic that after having these super insulated walls and everything, we just have an old school wooden door. But it is very well sealed with weather stripping, etc.

I don't think there would be any particular issues with repainting a fiberglass door, unless it was a really dark color and has the sun beating down on it all the time. Just clean it and rough it up slightly with a little bit of sandpaper or Scotchbrite. I also like to sand very lightly between top coats. It's a little late in the year now for outdoor painting, but it is supposed to be warmer this weekend so you might be okay. I had mine off and drying inside the house for a few weeks.

Here's a great home improvement forum that has tons of good information:
the garden web

Bowie Mike said...

Cyndy, Thanks for the advice and the link. Now that we think it will be OK to do it, now comes the color selection part, which will probably take until Spring when it's warm again.

When we moved into our house, we had a wood door. In the August humidity, it would swell up. At first, it was just difficult to pull open, but one time it got so bad that I had to go out the back door, go around to the front and kick it open. It probably needed to be planed down a bit.

Bowie Mike said...

Cyndy, this is off topic. I came across this blog post that I thought would be something you would like.

Cyndy said...

Wow - If I had a hardware store like that near me I would never go to Home Depot again. As it is I try to go to Mizell Lumber as much as possible. They have better stuff and often their prices are much better. Thanks for the link!