Paint the Town Red

... and by town I mean our front door!!!!
Yes, that's right. I painted our front door bright red.

Before:

This pic was taken this summer

And After:

 I have wanted to jazz up our boring ol' white door since we got this house but wasn't quite ready until now. I was really scared that I would mess up and ruin it - which I did mess up - BIG time - but I learned a lot from it and fixed my mistakes. The project just took twice as long as it should have, but more on that later. Why red you ask? Well because red is my favorite and the pop of color goes very nicely with our gray house, white trim, and black accents. I am in love. I also chose red after I researched a little bit about what different colored doors mean in different cultures and religions. The red door tradition dates back to Biblical times and is so rich in meaning. In almost every culture red means welcome. As history goes, Hebrew slaves were instructed to paint their doors red to protect their first born from the angel of death and provide them with a happy and plentiful life. (How perfect for us as we are trying right now!?) The red door symbolized that the ground beyond the door was holy and sacred, a sanctuary from any evil... both spiritual and physical. How cool is that?! I am so fascinated by different cultures. In early American times, if a family had a red front door, travelers passing through by horse and buggy would know that a home was a safe place to stop and stay. Perhaps more importantly than its historical meaning though, is the fact that according to the principles of Feng Shui, a red door is supposed to create a welcoming and positive energy or chi in your home. In China, it is a tradition to paint the front door red just before the New Year. It is believed to invite good luck and happiness into your home. Amazing! I was sold! Kade thought I was crazy (he thinks this quite frequently) but went along with it anyways haha. He is so supportive and patient with me. I love how he just lets me run with all of my crazy creative ideas.
I started it on Sunday evening on my glorious 3 day weekend after I went to work with Kade. He got called in and wanted me to come with him. It was pretty fun. When we got home we ran to Home Depot and got all of our supplies. Choosing the shade of red was hard. I was after a very particular type of red. I ended up with Benjamin Moore's Heritage Red. It is perfection. It was about 5:30 when we got back to the house. A normal person would have realized that they weren't going to finish the project that night and should start the next day. Nope - not me. I always get so excited about projects and I want to do them NOW and get them done NOW. Haha. That's just me. So I convinced Kade to take the door off for me (when doing so he broke the lock thingy and we had to get a new handle! Mistake #1) and we taped up this plastic stuff in our doorway so it wouldn't be too cold in our house. Even so, it was still freaking freezing. Mistake #2. Well after I primed the hell out of the door and waiting for what seemed like eternity - I was finally ready to paint... at 8:00. Don't paint in the dark people. DUH! Mistake #3.  Don't paint in the freezing cold. It just doesn't jive with the paint. Mistake #4. Dont' rush! I was rushing. It was like 10:00 and the door was still looking like a mess after a bazillion coats and we didn't have a freakin' door on our house. Kade had to get to bed because he had to get up for work the next morning. No bueno. Mistake #5. We put the door back on after like 5 coats of red (no joke), went to bed and hoped that it would look good in the daylight when we woke up. Not so much. When I woke up and walked outside to see our beautiful door - I was so taken back by how messed up it was. I just started bawling. LOL. Once I calmed down I was ready to fix it. I sanded my butt off! Sanding, sanding, sanding. Then I re-painted in the light. Then it looked much better and I loved it. It is not perfect, but it looks amazing to me and was exactly the vision I had. It should not have been this hard though if only I would have just done it right the first time around. Oh well. You live and you learn.
I really liked our old handle and lock. I wouldn't have got a new one, but we had to since Kade broke it! Lucky for us the handle was covered under a lifetime warranty so we got this new one for FREE! It's a good thing too because this would have cost us $150! I love you Home Depot. I wanted the exact same one we had before, but they didn't carry it anymore so we settled for the upgraded version of it. It is very similar but more chunkier which I love! I have to fix that paint line from the old one above the lock though.

Since the handle was free, I splurged and bought a new door bell and a door knocker.

Doorbell before:

Nasty. It looks like it belongs in the 70's which is weird because our house was built in 2006.

Don't you just love the mis-matched screws also?

And After:

Much better.

 I love door knockers. I especially love the old vintage ones with the lion's head on it - you know what I'm talking about? The chunkier the better. Like this -

LOVE THOSE! But of course it was a little out of our price range and didn't really match the style of our current home, so I settled for this nice one:

I really like it. It is clean and more contemporary and just polishes off the look.
Anyway, that is the story of our beautiful red door. I smile every time I look at it.

I also got this cute little family sign:

I wish I could say that I made it myself, but I didn't. I bought it off Etsy for only $20 including shipping and everything! I could have so easily made this, but I just didn't have the time or patience. I feel a little disappointed that I didn't make it myself because it is SO not like me to buy something I can make, but oh well. Wow, I am truly my mother's daughter. DIY-ers up in here!

The next project for me will be these sad little chairs on the porch -

I want to paint them black with a red and white cushion to match.
I also need a black welcome mat.
It's funny how upgrades like this one are contagious and makes you want to do more and more.

My mom gave me a really good idea to paint the pop outs around the windows and the the garage door a darker gray color to match the roof. I would love to do that someday! But I need to slow down... one project at a time. Kade has forbidden me from any more big projects for a while.
Haha... we'll see how long that lasts. ;)