Front Door Transformed

This past summer I made a hasty decision to paint our front door a mustard yellow.  It was one of those decisions that I knew I'd regret almost as soon as I made it.  And I did.

Truth is, I absolutely detest the door.  It doesn't go with our house and I just plain don't like it.   It has been every color under the rainbow but I finally figured out that painting it over and over isn't going to make me like it more.

I want a craftsman wood door but that certainly isn't in our budget so I attempted to do the next best thing.  A faux wood door.  I had no idea how to do this so I guessed as I went along.   The door already has fake wood grain embedded so I didn't need the tool to get that look.  I just wanted a deeply rich colored door with many dimensions, if that makes sense.  But most of all, I wanted to cover that window.


Anyway........yuck!  Here is the before.

Luckily, we have a nice wood screen door that covers this ickiness up.  That door also received a transformation that I will share when I share our Fall Porch.

Here is the front door after.

I would like to be able to tell you the colors I used but I just mixed a bunch of colors from my paint stash and then rubbed an antiquing glaze over the entire door.  The antiquing glaze I bought at Lowes.  I just dabbed and rubbed off until I had the look I wanted.  The colors included a leather brown color, a chocolate color and a gold and a little black.

Then to cover the glass, I painted chalkboard paint, 4 coats to be exact, and stenciled the message on the front.  I also painted chalkboard paint on the glass on the other side of the door but I'll show you that later.

I. Love. It!! 

After 7 years of living in this house, I finally love the front door and I only had to spend 10 bucks for the glaze since I had everything else.  Yay!

What do you think?

I'll be sharing our Fall Porch soon so stay tuned!! 

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Spring/Summer Porch Ideas

Hey there!  Hope everyone is doing well!  I've had lots of fun the last week or so changing our front porch out for Spring and Summer.  We do a lot of living out there during the summer on warm evenings and nights, so, I really try to pay just as much attention to it as I do the inside.  And it's fun, so, why not, right?

Our front porch has been several different colors during the time that we have lived here and I've never been satisified with any of them, hence, painting them over and over.  Last summer I painted it a very dark chocolate brown, which I really liked at the time of the painting.  I've come to the conclusion that the reason I liked it so much is because it really did look like dark chocolate while it was in the can and as I was rolling it on.  It was luscious and I wanted to it eat it.  Of course, I didn't.  Anyway, a couple of days after it dried, I hated it, but hubby would have thought I had lost my mind if I painted over it so soon with something else so I just lived with it until now.   At this point, he kind of expects me to change paint colors with the seasons, so, changing it now, wouldn't be so crazy.

This year I decided to do stripes on our front porch, just like I did on our side porch last year.  I already had all the paint, which was white and manchester tan, so I taped off 12 inch sections and got busy.  After it was all dry, I gave it a couple of coats of water based Varathane for high traffic floors.  Water based so it wouldn't yellow over time like oil based does over light colors.  Here's how it looks now.

Pretty sure I won't be changing this because I LOVE it.  I did a couple of DIY projects while decorating this area and I will blog about those later.  First up is this nifty jar candle hanging lanterns thing (for lack of a better word) that I put together with some of my old jars, wire, rope and scrap walnut and attached to the ceiling of our porch.  (ignore the wind chime....I forgot to take it down before taking the photo)

Crazy about that as we sit outside a lot at night and doing that by candlelight will be really special and fun.  I filled the jars with lavender and tea lights.

I love to sit here and chat with my boys about their day or read to my youngest in this cozy corner.  At night snuggling up to hubby here is the best way to end the day.  There's nothing better.  Or we like to sit here and eat our lunch together.

My color scheme for the porch was taken from the pillows on the swing.  It had light orange, melon, light lime green and very light lavender.  I ordered the large orange dot fabric here.  I ordered two yards and had enough to make a large lumbar pillow for the settee and a smaller pillow for the swing.  That dot pillow just makes me smile.  It's so cheerful and fun, perfect for the porch.

I picked up the ceramic garden stool at a flea market for 15 bucks.  I was thrilled about that because I've always wanted one but they were just too high.  I cleaned it up and spray painted it white.  It was off white when I bought it and rather dingy, so, I thought bright white would be perfect.
That sucker is heavy!

My hubby collects old minnow buckets and I just love them.  I thought they would make cool planters for flowers and ferns with their splash of color and shiny galvanized coating.  And by using them, there is also a piece of him in the decor, as well.  :)  The only other thing I purchased for the porch was this really cool vintage step ladder.  I wanted something unique to place a fern on instead of just popping it into a plain planter and thought this was perfect.  I had my eye on it at a flea market but wasn't sure about the price so hubby talked them down a little and bought it for me for around 15 bucks as well.  It was red and gross but I loved it anyway because of the X in the back, a design I adore, and I knew I could give it a little TLC and make it into something special.  I'll blog about how I did that later and show you the before pics.

And that's it for the front porch! 

I'll be blogging about the ladder and jar lanterns soon!  Have any of you decorated your porch yet for Spring and Summer?  Have a great weekend!