Front Door, Day 3

Is it really just Day 3?!?! Maybe I forgot and didn't count right... it feels like it's been forever! The door is basically done, it needs some cleaning up around the windows and the edges but I'm not taking it off again, especially now that it's 3 digit weather here in Mid-MO! But, I am working on the door frame now. The below picture shows how large the caulk (and some other stuff) was between the door and the house bricks. It had started to crack really bad and hasn't taken much to get off. Luckily there's not a lot of that poop brown paint color on the bricks. There's some, but it could be a lot worse.
I'm not done but I think I'll stop for the day. Heat, chemicals, and no breeze is not a good combo. So here are the pictures...

Oh, and if you want, you can see Day 1 here, Day 2 (part 1) here and Day 2 (part 2) here. And here it is before I started.

Ugh... this side pisses me off. They stripped the board to place the wiring for the doorbell underneath the metal frame for the screened door. The board is basically ruined!

Random screw hole (probably from screen door) and all the layers of paint.

Pretty wood underneath 3+ layers of paint.

You can kind of see a groove in the wood (same piece as where the door hinge used to be, running vertically). It's a pain to clean out but I think it's a nice detail.

Front Door Progress, Day 2 Part 2

It's getting closer!! I made a lot of progress on the door today but there is still a lot to go. However, it's back on its hinges and the hardware is back on so my house is safe again. And all in time for me to relax a bit before picking up Lily.

As with any home project, this one is going to most likely cause a snowball effect. The interior of the door now needs touched up (ok this needed it before but needs it more now), the door jam definitely needs help (no surprise), the threshold needs some TLC and what may be the biggest is that now I want to paint the front porch floor. It's currently a brick red that's in need of paint. It's always got dirt and pollen on it thanks to some neighboring trees. Instead of fighting the issue, I may go with the dirt color and paint the whole thing a gray/tan color. Griege? Maybe. We will see. After that though, I know we will want to paint the porch railing. And of course, there's our sidewalk that is crying out for help. Oh the joys of homeownership.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's back up to the door....

This is why you wear gloves! My hand isn't even in the right glove and yet it's still stuck in that position.

GROSS! This is what I scraped off after I had most of the paint gone.

The grossness is worth it in the end because of this:

Full shot of the door. This is how I've left it.

There's a little bit of a story to the next photo. I just forgot to take a photo of it (although you can kind of see it from the full door shots). My dad told me that there was extra wood nailed to what's shown below. I'm assuming that it was for their screen door that they had here previous to us. Whatever the reason though it's gone. Now there's an even space around the whole door - see it? Yeah, it's tough. 

Isn't the beadboard ceiling nice? I've given thought to painting it a color. Maybe blue like my dining room?

Front Door Progress, Day 2 Part 1

Part 1....

If only someone was here to take photos of me while I tried to carry out a solid wood door. Ha!! For awhile, I was afraid I couldn't do it but I was so determined that I just had too. My determination met its match with a brand new bottle of stripper though, and the stripper won. But not the door!! Luckily I had another bottle that had already been open in our basement!

The door came off the hinges incredibly easy which was extremely helpful seeing as one side of the hinges is painted over and one is underneath some weather stripping.

I also took the hardware off. That was easy - just a few screws. Getting it back on should hopefully be just as easy. I have to get it all put back together before I can leave the house to pick up Lily!!

Anyway... Here is the door. It's almost done with the stripper. I'm letting it dry a little until I can tackle the paint some more. Most of it is done though!!!

Window detailed

More window detail. These little areas are tough to get!

More windows.

The hole is from the door knob hardware and the raised circle is from where I let the empty container of stripper sit (upside down) to drain out.

Underneath of the weather stripping piece on the bottom of the door.

Getting there!

All the paint is gone (well, for the most part, there's still some grossness in the window area)

And here's the door frame that I am also working on. Along with removing as much paint as possible (this part will all be repainted, not stained like the door), I am removing the caulk that helped sealed the area between the door frame and the brick walls of the house. 

The door frame and layers of paint.

Door frame - removing the old, cracked caulk that was attached to the door frame and bricks.

Door Progress, Day 1

I posted earlier that I was starting on the front door. Today saw a lot of progress!!! I'll let the pictures (and some captions) tell you the story. I hope to continue working on it tomorrow and Thursday. We have to go to Doug's grandmother's funeral Wednesday and will be visiting family that day.



That red is hard to get off!

I still have a ways to go....

Isn't that wood pretty???

The mail slot will be stained along with the rest of the door to help hide it and then we'll buy/make a sign to cover it up.

Part of the paint came off so easily!!

The red is gone! Well, most of it... if you look closely there's still a little.

More pretty wood grain!

The windows. On the bottom row, third from left, is set is slightly deeper than the rest. I had never noticed it until I was scraping the paint off. These windows are hard but are getting there!

Front Door Progress

I did it! I finally did it!

I started on the front door's makeover today! Last week I bought gel stripper and it is definitely the way to go! Look at all that ooey gooey goodness...

OK, so it's not all that pretty. The brownish paint (which is actually way more baby poop brownish yellow in person) is the main color on the door. The white is the base coat and that's all on top of a gorgeous wood door (the darker wood). That oval shape on the right is where the mail slot used to be but we sealed that sucker up last summer.

I was going to paint it. I even own the paint and it's been sitting under our armoire in the front room, basically right behind the door, for over a year now. But as my mom stood by me this morning and we watched the paint come right off, it showed a beautiful wood door. Soooo... I'm going to strip it and varnish it. It's too pretty to paint.

However, of course, there are some snags in this project. One, obviously, is the mail slot section. My mom came up with a great idea of buying a plaque, maybe with our last name on it, to hide it. I loved that idea and instantly thought of the vintage style metal ones that appear throughout Blog World.

Another snag is that the door bell wiring was hidden behind the metal frame from the old screen door. The screen door has never been there since we bought the house 5 years ago (almost!). That was a nice shocker this morning. So, we may get rid of the wired door bell anyway since I was going to have to buy a replacement since the original one was broken (I found that out while painting the hallway).

We do want to buy a screen door for this door to get some cross breeze when it's not 95 degrees outside, but Doug has a certain design in mind and we haven't been able to find it again. When we will, we'll snag that baby up as soon as possible. Or maybe we'll make it.

Issue #3 - the door frame is not the same wood. It's not liking the stripping process either. So it may be painted. Bringing me to the question of what color?

Issue #4 - we need to do something with the threshold. Again, we can paint it but what color? I have thought about painting it the same color as the door frame or the color of the porch floor, which I'd love to change from the chippy brick red color it's sporting currently. Decisions, decisions.

And that may be the only 4 issues I have with it... right now. I'm sure something will come up.

Anyway, break's over, back to stripping the paint off. I'm wearing gloves 'cause that stuff burns!