Our blue door is the highlight of my year….I mean, other than marrying the love of my life, spending two weeks together in Maui and being a newlywed……but next to that, definitely the highlight of my year!! 🙂

We began our blue door adventure at a Benjamin Moore color store; I am aware that going there was not our most cost effective solution, but this was our first real painting project and we were so unclear on the color that we decided we wanted to avoid the insanity of a Home Depot on a Saturday. Our first of two stops at Benjamin Moore ended well! An extremely friendly young man helped us narrow down our color choice to 3 options. We hurried home with our color swatches and placed each on the door to get an idea of how that color would look with the color of the house.

Color Choices

Andrew wanted a more a “rustic” blue; a color that others might describe as “country”. His favorite is on the right. I wanted something bright, something that screams happiness from the sidewalk, my favorite is in the middle. The one on the left…combined the two. I think Mr. Benjamin Moore guy knew that when he sent us on our way with the color swatches.

And so…we picked our favorite! I asked Andrew to take a picture, this is what I got. Men.

Andrew being a nerd

But seriously, this….is our favorite!! It’s called “Deep Ocean”.

the winner

And so…we headed right back to Benjamin Moore to pick up a quart of Deep Ocean in Semi-Gloss and the perfect paint brush at the suggestion of Mr. Benjamin Moore. 🙂

After gathering up all of our supplies, we headed home to begin our prep work. The big question centered around whether or not we would take the door off of the hinges to do the painting. Benjamin Moore guy said we should, but one of my favorite blogs Young House Love, recently posted about their door painting adventure…and they left it on the hinges. If you don’t know this couple, you should, and if you do know this couple then you know why I decided to trust them and leave the door on the hinges.

prep collage

Since we left the door on the hinges and smack dab in the middle of our entryway we had to make sure to cover the floor completely with a tarp. In addition to the tarp, we had to tape up the hinges and remove the hardware on the door. I wiped down both sides of the door with a wet cloth to remove any dirt or residue. The paint we purchased is self-priming so we didn’t have to do much to prepare the surface for paint. After we shook up the quart of paint realllllly well and then stirred the crap out of it…we were ready to apply our first coat!

PicMonkey Collage

On the first coat we painted inside each panel and worked our way out, on the second coat we began on the edges and worked our way in. It was mostly instinct, we had absolutely nothing to encourage that reasoning but it worked out wonderfully! We were immediately thrilled with the color of blue we chose and a second coat only made it even more perfect. Phew!

Once the door was painted on both the inside and out….Andrew finally saw what I saw….we needed new hardware. A door that perfect must have a perfect door handle. And so, we went to Lowe’s and he bought me a new hardware set. If you would have asked me 3 years ago if that would be romantic…I would have laughed in your face, but as we left Lowe’s I felt like I just received a brand new diamond necklace. We headed home so we could install the new hardware…well, so Andrew could install, I made dinner. 😉

hardware collage

 And finally…once the hardware was installed and the paint completely dried I placed my happy little wreath back where it belonged and I had my blue door!!

Let’s remember how it looked before:

before

And after!!!!

finished door 1

 Amazing, right? Just to be clear I’m talking about the door….not my husband photo bombing the door 😉

Still not sold…just look at them next to each other!

before and after

I love it so much!! It truly was the perfect project to get us started. There was some bickering, some disagreements and I’m pretty sure that I was allergic to the paint….my eyes were red, watery and vampire like the entire process. But, when Andrew and I both stood outside on the sidewalk and admired how much a small project like that transformed our house we were ecstatic and so, so excited for all of our future projects together!

Hope you love it!