~ A Cheery Welcome~

Sorry it has been a few days since I last blogged.  I had a friend who was hurting a husband who was leaving and children who were, well, they were being children.  Enough said.

In the midst of it all, I have completed another project.  I am on a roll baby!  This one only took two years to do.  I know, I'm fabulous!  And I'm blogging from a place that is not the dark, furthest from the world, corner in my basement.  My new space is not necessarily pretty yet, but I am only 10 steps away from the kids, the kitchen and only 3 from the bathroom.  In the basement I was at least 4 away from the bathroom.  That extra step is killer.  I kid!

I know I have mentioned before how much I dislike the hunter green in my house and how much, apparently, the previous owners liked it.  That and carpet in the bathroom.  Yuck!  Well, we had gotten rid of the linoleum in the half bath and the kitchen that had hunter green diamonds in it and we have gotten rid of one more thing.  The front door.  We didn't actually get rid of the door, just the hunter green paint on it.  I even took a before picture.  I am really becoming a pro at this!

The previous owners used a brush on the door and they went in different directions.  It drove me bonkers.  They also tried to touch up a couple of spot with a different green paint that did not match.  You can't see it here, but I saw it ALL. THE. TIME.  It drove me bonkers too.

I really wanted to do it right and do a good job at it, so first off I needed to take off all the hardware.  The door knocker was easy.  It was just held onto the door with some 3M adhesive.  Next came the dead bolt.  I took the screws out from the inside, took the piece that the screws were holding in place and then tried to take the rest of the pieces apart.  Nothing.  So I unscrewed the side where the deadbolt actually comes out as those were the only other screws I could see.  Nothing.  I pulled, I wiggled and still..... Nothing.  I thought about calling my husbands friend, who happened to be working down the street, and seeing if he could come play husband for a few minutes and take it off for me but I thought that might be inappropriate.  I think that was a good call.  So I did the next best thing....

 and taped around the dead bolt and door knob.  If my husband doesn't like it, when he gets home, then he can take them off and finish the painting.

I chose the color Red Rebellion from Valspar.  I also used a small foam roller and one of my crafting foam brushes.  Painting the front door is a form of crafting. 

After one coat:

Two coats:

AND the final coat:

It is not a dark red.  It is more of a rusty red.  A red orangeyish color.

OH... and since I taped around the hardware, I used an xacto knife to cut around them before I took the tape off.  Just enough to cut through the paint and be able to pull the tape off cleanly.  It worked great!

I did a lot of research before doing this and found that the best way to roll is to gradually put less pressure on the roller as you go along.  I would push hard at first and then go back over it more gently.  it really gave it a nice finish and almost covered up all of the brush strokes.  Enough so that I think I can look past them now.

Only two more hunter green things left to go.  One of them is also in the near future.   Can't wait to show you that project, which I will not be doing, but will be managing my husband while he does it.  I'm great at that!