Monday, October 27, 2014

2 Down, 9 To Go: Painting Interior Doors

I have been MIA from house projects lately. Apparently newborns and toddlers take up quite a bit of time. I am now getting back into project mode. I have a long list of things to get done before the end of the year and if I get half of my list done I will call that a success. 

This week I dusted off my angle brush, grabbed my trusty white paint, and got to work. I have decided that it is the time to paint all the doors...and I mean ALL the doors. Eleven doors total. Just like the trim, all the doors in our house are an orange oak color. I plan on slowly painting the doorways and doors a nice bright white. I know I know...what a surprise. White does wonders. It looks so clean and brings in lots of light. 

I don't have the best before pictures but these will give you an idea of what we were working with. 
Looking down the hallway.

The picture below was after we painted the walls, trim, ceilings, and doorbell.

Our progress pictures are below. I have started in the hallway and painted 2 out of the 5 doors. 

I can't wait to see the entire hallway finished. I think it looks significantly better. I used 2 coats of Kilz No-VOC primer and 2 coats of a low VOC semi gloss white. I used an angle brush on the trim and a roller on the doors. I made the mistake of painting under the hinges on the first door. It makes the door a little tight. I may have to go back and fix up the first door. The second door I broke the doorknob and locked myself inside the room (Brian had to rescue me). I figure by the time I get to the last door I will be an expert. 

I also gave the hardware a little face lift. I had some Rustoleum ORB (oil rubbed bronze) in our paint storage and I gave it a try. I love the way they turned out. 
Just an idea of how I painted the hardware. I poked the screws into the cardboard so they would stay upright. Two light coats was plenty of coverage.

As you can see in the pictures above I have started to hang up stuff around the house as well. I've decided to have a floor to ceiling gallery in the hallway. I didn't want it to be entirely random so I picked a travel theme for the hallway gallery. I started with a drawing I did of one of my favorite quotes by St. Augustine, "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page". Once that was framed and centered I have been building on that. The pictures and paintings are places that we have travelled or lived.  

 I really look forward to building on this wall.  

Hopefully it won't be months before my next update. If anyone has advice on how to manage 2 kids, play dates, walking the dog, cleaning the house, laundry, exercising, cooking dinner, AND diy work let me know. I am over my head most days so those two doors took me 4 days, a messy house and a lot of diet coke to complete. 

Happy Monday!