I Need Your Thoughts: Is Paint the Answer?

Monday you saw the refreshed hallway and now I need your help with a decision I've been waffling about.  I don't love our exterior door.  I thought paint might help, but I found a photo of a similar door, side by side with a more modern door (both painted the same cheery colour), and I'm still feeling a little meh about it:

via

As a reminder, here's our actual door:

If money were no object I'd replace the door with a Crestview door, to imbue our 1990s bungalow with the mid-century inspired simplicity I'm inching toward.

Door 1, 2, 3

We're thinking of eventually turning the carport (behind the door) into an enclosed garage, so our main entrance might, quite literally, not see the light of day.  In that case, a cheap, simple option would be great.  I found a plain slab door that rings in at about $300 (we need two).  But the window-less door will certainly darken the hallway, and our garage plans might never come to fruition anyway. 

There's another window-less version that's really popular at the hardware store and it's much cheaper.  The ABM studio recently got one and they painted it turquoise (I'm drooling over here).  I love the colour, obviously, but the differently sized panels totally make me twitch.  Why can't they be the same size?!?  I literally see someone buying one of these doors every time I venture out for reno supplies.  I could probably even snag one in the classifieds for even less. 

A Beautiful Mess

In our city, I have yet to find a plain door with a window.  It's an elusive combo.  All I can find are doors that are incredibly ornate or traditional looking - even the plain slab I finally tracked down is a special order.

The miserly part of me says "just paint the door you have!" while the optimist says "don't waste time and money on a temporary fix - hold out for the one"!  You know my style and my vision for the lakehouse, so what do my lovely readers say?

EDIT: Wow, thanks so much for answering the survey I originally had embedded here.  So many responses!!  I appreciate you taking the time to weigh in.  These were the results:

Paint our existing door = 75.53%
Buy and paint the cheap paneled door = 2.13%
Buy and paint a plain slab door = 2.13% (what are the odds?)
Keep questing = 20.21%

I think that, for now, I'm going to go with the majority and paint our existing door.  We have no shortage of projects to tackle this summer - some of them quite pricey - so our budget will appreciate an inexpensive solution.  But like so many suggested, I'll keep my eye out for "the one," or maybe next year we can build a custom door like some readers proposed - I think we're up for the challenge!  Thanks so much for all of your feedback!!

Mid-Century Modern Inspired Interior Door Levers

When we enter the lakehouse through what we deem our main entrance, we're greeted immediately by the hallway and a whole lotta doors.  The hallway originally boasted beige paint paired with oak trim and doors.  Combined with worn out gold door hardware and boob lights, the overall look was a little disappointing to come home to:




I wanted a brighter and more welcoming entryway and hall.  The first step was to paint the walls, ceiling, and oak trim white, along with all of the woodsy doors.  Next we ditched the lights in favor of my cheap and trusty Ikea lights.  We collapsed the previously separate smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector into one sleek unit from Nest.  Then we hung my DIY triptych (which fills the wall, making these humble little abstracts look much more grand), along with my framed Hungarian embroidery.  My little thrift store painting got a new, slimmer frame (the refurbished one was dented during the move).  Swapping out the dinky and dated brass knobs for more substantial, mid-century inspired Juneau levers from Sure-Loc is the latest update.  We still have more to do, but here's our much happier hallway: 

I'm (almost) always Team New Hardware, but this change is special because I've wanted this exact style of door lever for years.  Even though I loved our little $10 silver knobs in the townhouse, their main attributes were cheapness and newness.  They were good enough (spot the hideous "before" ones here), but not really enough to make me say "wow". 

Small knobs in the townhouse

The Juneau levers, on the other hand, are gorgeous and have a beautiful scale to them; they have presence, which you can see in the side-by-side comparison with the old doorknobs (above).  With simple, straight-forward doors like ours, a lever with some wow-factor adds some much needed visual interest, while keeping in line with my vision for an uncluttered, modern look.

Whenever I do a product review I like to take some time to really test out the product so I can tell you something beyond, "it's shiny!". You've likely spotted the levers in action in the bedroom, the laundry room and the bathroom.  Now that we've put them through the ringer, I can report that we're really happy with our Sure-Loc levers.  They were straightforward to install.  The only trouble is that they are not perfectly straight (I'm talking about millimeters here); they have a slightly hand-made look to them which is really subtle and something we determined we liked.  Mechanically, they have a firmness to them when you open and close doors - there's a really crisp mechanism inside.  Fingerprints show up a smidge on the brushed finish, but they really popped on the sheen of the former gold knobs. 



Disclosure: I was provided six Sure-Loc levers for review but was not encouraged to provide a positive review.  Many bloggers accept complimentary product for their homes and I know some readers wonder if they would have chosen the same item, had it not been provided for free.  I thought I'd share the background details that are sometimes elusive on product reviews: after tracking down the style I wanted, and then falling in love with other styles from their inventory, I contacted Sure-Loc about a partnership and am thrilled that they were excited about working with me.  I would have purchased these levers had they turned down my request (shhh, don't tell them).  The Juneau levers are stylish, well-made, and are exactly what I envisioned.  I can't imagine the hallway without them.  If you're interested, you can find them at Direct Door Hardware.

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Updating an Exterior Door

When I first fell in love with the lakehouse, I immediately envisioned colourful doors.  Interior, exterior - all bright hues.  I've never really been bothered by the condo dictating front door colour choices in the townhouse because it helps keep the neighbourhood looking pretty by preventing some garish choices, but I think it has planted seeds of rebellion. 

For now, though, I wanted a quick fix to make the door/window combo leading to the deck a little more modern.  The left side is a proper door, but the right is a door-sized window that cranks open:

After scrubbing like mad with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser I realized the door is actually a crisp white, not a beige or off-white hue (bonus!).  In the process of cleaning I also realized the wood "panes" are actually just cheapy faux french door add-ons that clip in with thumb tacks.  Lovely.  Once I jettisoned those, I also removed the screen from the window, which is easily popped back in to place if I so desire.  Already it looked better, because the asymmetry of the door + screen was driving me bonkers.

Lastly, I gave the oak door casing and trim, plus the trim around the window, a coat of Zinsser primer and then four coats of paint.  After de-oaking so much trim in the house, I've picked up some tricks. 

The primer is great because the manufacturer's instructions suggest skipping sanding (yes!) and it dries quickly.  For the primer and paint, I use an angled brush to wiggle the paint into grooves.  Very thin coats - even if they look awful at first - work best.

The only tricky part is removing the tape.  Scoring is a must because it takes the primer and paint about a week to fully cure and without scoring, the paint peeled in a couple of places and needed touch up.

After a week, though, it seems pretty durable (I'll be sure to update you once I've seen all the trim go through some wear and tear).  For now, it looks fresh and bright - like a brand new door.

This took seconds but it's already such a change! 

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Paint a Basement Door Mint and Create a Handy Message Centre

After we spruced up the basement landing/stairwell . . .

. . . the door to the basement remained sadly un-spruced.

It had been painted white and given new brushed silver hinges and door knob like all of our other interior doors, but it had been painted quickly and there were spots where the old grey-ish paint could be seen on the inside (that's my Mom above, Vanna White-ing it to show you where).  We had also started using it as a place to store vital information, like the garbage day schedule, but we had been using painter's tape to stick stuff up there.  I didn't have any white paint left, but I had my trusty free gallon of mint paint.  I decided a little colour would be fun, especially because it's just the inside of the door (the outside and edges stayed white).

I taped off the edges and the door knob, removed the papers and unscrewed the white bag holder.  Two coats of paint later, I had a fresh new minty door.  I grabbed a set of cork trivets from Ikea and affixed them to the door with construction adhesive, holding them in place while the adhesive dried with painter's tape.  And voila - much tidier!  Plus the mint looks sweet with the framed brooches in the stairwell.



We re-hung the holder for random plastic bags (on the rare occasion we get them from a store, I hang on to them and re-use them).  The cork trivets tidied up our important info.  We purposefully installed them in a vertical row, with one at kid-height, so if future owners have kids they can pin up their school stuff.  I would have liked to have painted these a fun colour, or done a whole grid (like this) but I was short on both time and money.  The natural cork looks cute against the brick when the door is open, anyway, and three tiles means we only have so much room to clutter up!

I'm really enjoying painting things mint . . .

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