Going Green

Our first house was a teeny-tiny, 700 sq/ft house built in 1942. It was perfectly lovely with muted yellow trim, all brick facade, crown moldings, and old wood floors. The front door was painted black, and I absolutely loved it. It was made of solid wood, had a letter slot, and a real brass knocker. So of course, in my next house, I wanted a black door just like it. However, painting a regular door black is not the same, and I noticed that EVERYONE in my neighborhood either had a dark wood door, a black or brown metal door, and a few were painted red or left tan. Why is everything so neutral around here? Our house is a purplish brown color so I decided green with a glaze was the way to go.

I needed to glaze the door so I practiced on this chair. It turned out great.

Getting the door painted was easy. I chose grasscloth by Behr for the undercoat. I used a small sponge roller for most of it and a trim brush for the corners. Then the weather turned on me when it was time to glaze it. I was impatient--I did not want to wait until the snow storm came in and then be stuck with a lime green door all winter. I mean it was a nice clean color, but it certainly did not go with my brick or stucco (sorry--I just have pictures of the finished product, so you'll just have to use your imagination for my story. I need to work on that)

So of course I just foolishly kept glazing even though it was drying as soon as I put it on. I was about in tears. The wind kept blowing everything around (50 mph gusts), it was dark as could be, my hands were frozen, and the door kept getting uglier. Finally, I decide to go back to the store and get some olive green paint and forget about the glaze. Winter is not the time to redo a door--duh.
Then my husband told me to sand it. Why didn't I think of that? So I sanded off the brown and let the green shine through again. It is not exactly how I pictured it, but it has grown on me and now I really like it (and yes--i did scrape off the paint off my oil rubbed bronze handle--got to love the copper. I just left the black in the corners).
Thank goodness for smart husbands (even if he is not really a fan of my crazy front door). So there you have it, a funky, one of kind door, that speaks for itself.


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