The Front Door Saga...

I've been busy... working on that blasted front door. It hasn't been all that fun, I must tell you. Sanding, sanding and you guessed it - MORE SANDING. I am a bit  frustrated with the gouges in the wood and the dry rot. In the past week, I would work on it for a couple of hours each day, just until I had sawdust coming out of my hair, eyes and nose and was about ready to torch the thing!  Saturday, I found myself at the home improvement store pricing out doors, that is how close I was to giving up on this project.

Then reality hit... $$$... and I went back to working on the door. I have learned that when I get really frustrated, that is when it is time to take a break and walk away.

 I tried a wood filler epoxy over the weekend. Famowood Instant Wood Repair

Gotta say, it was a huge 'ole mess. Or rather I made a big mess of it! I managed to mess up the wood on the sidelight even more, and ended up with my right hand almost completely covered, on the palm side in this epoxy wood filler. I was finally able to get the stuff off of my hand today - several days later. Of course a normal patient person would have used some kind of protective glove when working with this goop. But I am impatient and not always the brightest bulb in the box.

Well, after that fiasco, the next day I got back to sanding again. At this point my palm sander has been going on overdrive and I have gone through 60 grit sandpaper like it is going out of style!  The Dremel has been very useful in getting into the grooves and cracks of the door, where it is almost impossible to do with sandpaper alone. This morning, I taped and prepped the area and spent 3.5 HOURS priming that blasted door, sidelight, frame and trim. The silver lining is that it was quite cool this morning, so it wasn't unbearably hot painting outside.

I used Sherwin William's Exterior Oil-Based Wood Primer.

Overall it is a good product, but it is oil, which means two things:

1. The door seemed to takes FOREVER to dry.

2. Oil based products are always  a pain to clean out of brushes, paint pans and other items.

I put the primer on a bit thick, so there are some goopy spots, but that is o.k. with me. My 9 year old also arrived home from summer school around noon, and decided to slam the door shut. There are some paint smears around the frame now. *sigh*  Oh well, nothing that sandpaper can't fix.

 I still have to fill in more spots with some painter's caulk and sand the heck out of it...again.

Already though, just being primed - the door looks so much better and my front entry looks a lot more inviting and cheerful. I stood back and admired it, and then admired it again when I was coming around the block in my car from being out an about.

I hope to have it done by Friday to reveal to you!

Here is the before picture again.

And here is what it looked like on Saturday after I had done some sanding.

At this point, I was only HALF way through with sanding it, if you can believe it! I was also starting to fill in some of the gouges and holes in the wood when this picture was taken. The door itself hasn't been too bad, but the wood on the sidelight is in pretty bad shape.

The brass kick plate will be getting spray painted some form of silver/ brushed nickel, to match the other hardware on the door.  So when I am ready to paint, the door will be painted white. The exterior of our house is a light pink, with white trim - think 1993 and the colors that were in style back then - country blues, mauves, pink and hunter green.

It's not my favorite color in the world for the house, but the paint is still in good condition and we will eventually get it painted - professionally.

On a side note, here is a vintage dresser that I picked up on Craigslist last week for $30.00.

I am guessing 1940's??? Any other guesses?

It has original casters on the bottom. The veneer is peeling off, so I took a heat gun to it and have already removed the veneer from two of the drawers. It was super easy and went quite quickly with the putty knife and heat gun.

When I am done with the front door, I will probably work on it some more.