The Amazing Difference a Colorful Front Door Can Make (Plus, a Painting Tip for Painting Doors with Windows, and the Keypad Door Knob I Chose)

Some days I really feel like I’m completely unstoppable on the subject of making progress on tasks. Different days, it’s all I can do to get a entrance door painted and change out a door knob. However when a painted entrance door makes such an enormous distinction, even that small process may be fairly thrilling! Plus, I’ve marked off two more items from my 2025 list of home goals, and that alone is fairly motivating for me. Typically it pays to get these small duties carried out simply so as to mark these off your checklist. That feeling of accomplishment in seeing these tasks being checked off of the checklist is usually so motivating for tackling the larger tasks.

For my workshop, I selected the identical coloration for the entrance door that I’ve used on the doorways of our home — Benjamin Moore Hen of Paradise. However this time, I had it coloration matched at Sherwin Williams since that’s the place I went to buy the paint for the shutters that I made for the workshop. The colour match was excellent, and this coloration makes me smile each time I see it.

Let me remind you what the workshop regarded like with the brand new shutters and a plain white entrance door…

And right here it’s with the blue shutters and the brand new coral entrance door…

And the way type of the candy little stray kitty to pose for me, proper? 😀 He loves hanging round once I’m working exterior.

This coloration is admittedly saturated, and as is usually the case with actually saturated colours (particularly something that’s pink or red-adjacent), it took three coats to cowl all the things. After the primary coat, it was trying fairly streaky.

Two coats coated fairly properly on a lot of the door, however there have been nonetheless streaky areas across the home windows, so I went forward and did a 3rd coat. Three coats coated completely, and it didn’t take lengthy in any respect. The primary coat took about quarter-hour, and the 2 subsequent coats solely took about 10 minutes every.

I opted to tape off the home windows as an alternative of utilizing the paint-on window masks that you simply peel off after portray (which is what I used when I painted the French doors at the back of the studio). Since I needed to do that rapidly, taping really went a lot sooner, and I didn’t have to attend the hour (or typically longer) for the paint-on masks to dry earlier than portray the door. Taping the home windows off solely took about quarter-hour, after which I might get proper to portray.

The important thing to fast taping of home windows is to place the tape straight throughout (which you’ll be able to see on the prime left of the picture beneath), after which return with a razor blade and lower the tape at an angle to take away the surplus tape. That offers you excellent corners each time.

Right here’s one other have a look at what the door regarded like after only one coat. You possibly can see how streaky it appears to be like even from a distance. It wasn’t fairly. 😀

I needed to place a keypad lock on the door so I can entry the workshop any time somewhat than having to enter my studio and get the keys each time I needed entry to the workshop, and since this door solely has one doorknob and no deadbolt, the choices had been fairly slim. Most keypad locks are for deadbolts and never doorknobs. So I ended up going with this Honeywell digital door knob that I discovered at Lowe’s. It’s nothing fancy. It doesn’t have wifi capabilities, so there’s no app that controls it. It’s only a easy contact pad lock, which is what I needed for the workshop.

It was extremely easy to put in (it took about 5 minutes), and up to now, I like it! Programming a brand new entry code took one other 5 minutes. The directions had been very clear and easy.

In order that’s two extra tasks crossed off!

I’m glad that I had a few straightforward tasks that I might do and examine off the checklist as a result of the subsequent undertaking — including skirting across the backside of the workshop — isn’t a fast and simple undertaking. However that’s the undertaking that may take this workshop to the subsequent stage.

Addicted 2 Adorning is the place I share my DIY and adorning journey as I rework and beautify the 1948 fixer higher that my husband, Matt, and I purchased in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do bodily work, so I do nearly all of the work on the home on my own. You can learn more about me here.