Front Door Makeover!

It's been a while since I've done a project to make the apartment beautiful and more homey.  I haven't had any motivation to continue in the living room.  And it felt wrong to start somewhere else until I was finished there.  Well a few days ago I had a realization: that's dumb.  Who cares if the living room isn't 100% finished??  Strike while the motivation is hot!!  Wherever that may take you.  And this time it took me to the front door :)

I don't follow many blogs.  In fact, I only read one.  The amazing iHeartOrganizing blog!!  You really need to go check it out if you haven't already.  She is fantastic!  But I recently added another blog to my reading list.  Meredith and Gwyneth, The New Yorkie.  This girls apartment is absolutely adorable and I want it!  She has projects and home tours from her apartments in New York and California.  And it is just her and her adorable yorkie dog :)  Part of the home tour for both of these apartments includes her painted front door!  Take a look!!

Isnt' it amazing?!  I knew I had to have it!  And while I am in love with the pink color, my roommate isn't too crazy about it.  She doesn't hate pink, but she doesn't love it either.  So I went with something we both love and had on hand.  Blue!  Left over from our stenciled living room wall (which I've never fully revealed on here so that will be coming up soon!)

So here is what we had to start with:

Boring.  White, white, white...  just like everything else.  So it was time to get to work!  First up: tape off all the areas that weren't getting the blue paint.

Note: don't be stingy with the tape.  Over tape if necessary!  This way you can avoid having to go through with white and touch up areas you accidentally get paint on...  Lesson learned.

Then it was time for a coat of paint! Pretty blochy.  But that's a-okay!  It'll just take a few more coats of paint.

Note: It's best to use a roller for this type of project.  It will go much quicker and you won't have to worry about brush marks.  I used a sponge brush...not the best type of tool for the project.  But it did work

After that had some time to dry, it was time for another coat of paint!  It's not as easy to tell in this picture, but it was still pretty blochy and needed another coat of paint.  So time to wait for that to dry.

Remember, just because you are DIYing something, that does not mean you need to settle for "good enough."  Go ahead and go the extra steps to make it look more professional and something you can be really proud of!

For instance: our door has a peep hole.  But the sponge brush couldn't really reach the inside.  And I didn't want to try to hard because getting paint on the peep whole glass defeats the whole purpose.  So go ahead and get a small painting brush and reach the little spaces your bigger brush or roller couldn't reach.  It makes a world of difference!

And those spots where you didn't put painters tape because you were confident in your ability to paint around them but turns out you weren't... Yea.  Touch those up.

So a few touch ups and another coat (man that door was cold! wow..okay that pun was funnier in my head) and... TA DA!  Beautiful.  Well, almost.  Now for the moment of truth!  Time to cross my fingers and hope the door looks just as amazing as I envisioned...

And it does!!  It looks fantastic!  What an improvement from before.

Want to see a before and after?  Pretty drastic difference!  It's amazing what a simple coat of paint can accomplish.