The Bane of My Existence

*** Let me apologize now if I get a little lengthy with this one. I am SO excited to have finally completed this simple project and to be sharing it!

There is one project that I've been wanting to tackle that is long over due. Very long.

It's our mudroom door. It leads directly from our small entry mudroom to our living room and you can see it from most vantage points on our main living floor. It's also dead set in front of you when you walk up the stairs in the morning. It's not really my kind of wake up call.

Good morning!

It has remained the dirty little secret that I have edited out of photos,

especially when I revealed to you our planked wall progress back in April.

I can't give you a good reason why we haven't tackled this project sooner.  Other things seemed more pressing I guess. Now that we have (no scrolling down), I'm regretting that we didn't do this months ago.

From the day we moved in I knew I wanted to replace it with a single lite french door, that we would paint to add some contrast and color. We finally (finally!)  took the first step back in early May, when we headed to Home Depot and placed a custom order for the door. The unfortunate part was that the order would take six weeks to arrive.

Fast forward six weeks to Thursday of this past week, when the door was ready for pick up. I may or may not have driven Jon crazy nagging him to go and get it. Then I may or may not have held my breath and crossed all of my fingers and toes, hopeful that we measured correctly.

Jon text me this photo of the door, just after he had picked it up.

The glass was covered in a protective film, and the finish was

primed and ready for some paint.
It really didn't look all that great in this state, to be honest.

Then it was time to select just the right color for the door.

That caused me a lot of heartache, and I'll expand on that process in a coming post.

Match maker, match maker, make me a match.

On Saturday,  the  longest day of the year, with Jon at work and the kids tucked into bed I was dying to get started on prepping and painting that door. 

I worked in the garage until the sunlight faded at 9:00pm 

(Why, oh why, can't we have this kind of light year round?)

The film on the glass can be compared to saran wrap coated in primer.

Peeling it back was a slow and messy process

(and I'm nearly certain if I had googled a method, 

I could have found a much quicker way of doing this), 

but I was happy to be doing it, nonetheless.

An hour or so later, it was looking a bit better.

The following day, after lots of vacuuming and dusting the door was ready for paint. 

This is coat number two, drying. 

After an initial hanging, we figured out we'd need to shave a tad off the bottom, which wasn't a huge surprise as the original door had required the same. Add door customization and installation to Jon's growing list of home skills.

Jon took care of it all quickly though, and a few hours later, I had a new door.

I love you new door. I love you, love you, love you.

I thought this called for a look back at how this area looked one year ago

where it went from this:

To this:

And this:

To this:

Here is the photo I shared before we built our nook shelving.

And here's that angle now:

We should have done this project much sooner. It was one of the last truly outdate pieces in this area, and the facelift leaves us feeling like we've progressed 20+ years with just one project. The space isn't yet complete, as I've been hunting high and low for just the right industrial bin for that lower nook (the measurements are fairly tall and narrow, which is proving to be a tall order to fill), as well as an entry rug. We also still have to work on the trim around the door. Oh, and I'm thinking some old rustic antlers might just be the crowning glory.

It was a simple and from my perspective a completely affordable upgrade. The custom door, plus hardware and paint totaled just over $200.00. I'd say that was $200.00 well spent.

Sources:

Single pane french door: Home Depot, special order, Masonite Brand

Hardware: Weslock Door Hardware, from myknobs.com

Paint: Benjamin Moore, Coventry Gray