I love riding around different neighborhoods and looking at houses. I especially love riding around neighborhoods that have many different styles of houses on one street. They may jump from a modern house, to a traditional colonial home, to a midcentury modern home, to a cute little ranch all before you reach the next stop sign! I am not sure why that makes me so happy, but I do know that I am most drawn by the front doors of these various homes. I tend to create stories in my mind for certain doors and the basic looking doors don’t always get the best story lines. I wonder what people used to think when they drove by our home… especially once my son broke the glass in the sidelight. The story I would have made up about myself would not have been the best. Maybe I need to stop doing that. 

We were planning to replace the front door at some point this year, but of course the story that I created in my mind would not allow that to be delayed any further once that glass was broken. We covered it with paper and plastic and it just was not working for me at all. 

I started looking around at the big box stores and if you have attempted to make any major home purchases this year you already know that nothing was in stock. Well, I take that back, there was nothing in stock that I actually liked. With the state of our door, I could not really afford to wait months to replace the door. If anyone just touched that glass it would have caved in and the door and door frame was rotting in several places. 

I happened to find a local warehouse that had the type of door that I was looking for in stock. I ran to the store with my own measurements (not the best idea) and saw my dream door for this house. Unfortunately, that sidelights for that door were smaller (10 inches wide) that than ours (12 inches wide). I was told that they could potentially use trim to fill in the difference but it just felt bootleg that way. I was going to go along with that plan, but I got a message that they installer may have some doors that would fit our opening. They sent me a few pictures and they had it! I was so excited and could hardly wait to get it in! 

The day of installation was an exciting one for me for sure. I really just wanted to sit and watch everything but I showed some restraint. I only went out like 20 times and many of those times I was actually recording to share the process on Instagram so I feel like that doesn’t really count. 

Once the door was in, I noticed how disgusting the rest of the space looked. We pulled out the pressure washer and got to work. I had no clue that there would be such a difference. It’s amazing what a little water with some added pressure can do. 

Next up was painting the door. I went back and forth on the color family for a while. But I walked into Sherwin Williams, picked out the Evergreen color card and purchased a gallon without ever sampling it. I think sometimes you just know. I actually followed the instructions that came with the door for painting it. You know if I follow instructions then I must really love this door and not want to mess it up. Just in case you want to know what those steps are, check out the list below:

1. Lightly sand the door
2. Wipe the door down with denatured alcohol and a lint free cloth
3. Prime the door (my door came primed so I skipped this step)
4. Time for paint! (I also taped off the windows to be safe)

I did two coats of paint using Sherwin Williams’ Emerald Rain Refresh paint. It turned out beautifully! What do you think about our pretty green door? What story would you make up based on the door?