Paint, glorious paint!

I painted the back door, frame, and outside wooden areas around the door last week. Two coats' worth. I like it! 

A couple of days later, I started masking and prepping the front door for painting, but unfortunately by the time I had finished painting the frame, it turned out to be the hottest day of the week (hovered around 96 degrees all afternoon). The paint in the tray was getting a big scum on the top and the paint on the foam rollers and doors was drying before I could even get it spread properly. The sun was beating down on both me and the door. 

I was rewarded with door panels that feel like coarse sandpaper (photo below)! I think the paint must have been pretty much dry when the roller ran across it and pulled it away from the door. Or something. So I get to repaint the front door again. As soon as I get over the trauma of painting it the first time...

On a somewhat brighter note, but still within the Endless Painting that is associated with this house, this week I decided it was time to paint the picnic set. I sanded down the table and benches a bit to prep them for painting and tried to flatten out some of the uneven top edges. There were a few rough spots and rough ends that I wanted to remedy as well so there was no chance of anyone getting a sliver while sitting there. 

I got the bench undersides and part of the table underside painted before disaster struck.

I bumped my paint container off the table and it went spraying and splashing across more than half of the patio. Oops! I was anxious to get it cleaned up while it was still wet, so didn't stop to take a photo, but it would have been quite impressive I think. Here's a picture of the drop cloth drying in the sun looking like something from the scene of a murder with its brick red hue.

Doug kindly helped me spray and scrub the paint off mostly on our hands and knees and with the use of much elbow grease over about a two-hour period and the result you see below is definitely the cleanest patio on the block!

I finished the rest of the painting today and am delighted at the result! Doug had a 4-inch one-coat paintbrush that worked really great on this project. (Supplemented by a 2 1/2-inch brush and a small sponge brush.) 

The last big-ticket upgrade!

It's so exciting to finally wind down on the big, expensive remodeling to our home. This week, we had exterior doors installed in the front and back! Here you see it on the outside and inside. Personally, I don't think these photos do justice to the huge difference this door makes to our curb appeal plus our living room. Love it!

It was funny because when I went into the living room to look at it I asked one of the workers if they had painted our door trim white. He got a funny look on his face and said they had thrown out our door trim and replaced it with new. Turns out their "new" is the exact same pattern (Colonial) as the rest of our trim! Funny.

There were some challenges for the workers to install both of these doors. In the case of the front door, the space just wasn't wide enough for the new door to fit, even with every splinter of previous frame removed. So one lucky guy got to chisel the brick down until it worked.

In addition to needing to fill the nail holes and gaps in the trim and paint it, I also need to replace four of the floor tiles in the front hall. The new doors have a much narrower threshold than the old ones and it left a gap. They put a piece of wood in the space as a filler for now. So as always with home improvement, you're never really done!

Here's what they had to do to the back door - also a lot of work. There was no previous door frame on it, so it had to be sawed down exactly as well, no wiggle room here. One guy worked on that for quite a while.

On the right is the finished door and it looks great! The mini-blinds encased inside the door are only about 1/2 inch wide! You're supposed to move the magnetic opener slowly and carefully to avoid a problem. The trim on that door will also be painted brown like the rest, which will give a little break to the much white on that wall. It's so nice to be able to close off the world with the blinds as needed!

We bought paint for the picnic table and a big bucket for the shed, so the fun continues...