The unfinished front door

Last week, I posted about repainting our front door and refinishing the brass door knobs. This post took me a long time to write because I'm not quite happy with my front door. Prior to repainting our door, I contemplated for a very long time about what colors to paint it. I really wanted to paint it a bright and bold color like blue or yellow but in the end chickened out. I decided to stick to plain old white because I can't afford to mess with our front door. Front doors are not cheap and can cost a pretty penny (about $500-1000 is common). This project turned out to be quite stressful because I was really nervous about messing up our door.

Here is a before picture of the front door. It was slightly yellow/cream in color. Our house trim is plain white. I can't remember if our front door has always been cream/yellow or has yellowed due to sun exposure. Its really hard to tell in pictures the true color but its a tone or two lighter then masking tape.

First off, I finished off the brass door knobs. I ended up taking it off the door because my dad was there to help me. Refinishing the door knobs alone made a big difference. Our door looks so much more polished even though its so dirty and yellow. Below are pictures of the door already painted.

Then came taping the door and cleaning up all the dirt. Sorry I don't have any pictures of it. I used a plain foam roller and brush to paint our door. I also used only 1 quart of Behr outdoor semi gloss white paint.  Heres a close up of the color difference that I tried to capture. You can see where I painted and haven't painted right next to the door knob. 

Finally, here's our new freshly painted white front door. I still haven't removed the masking tape on the sides and extra paint that got stuck on the glass. I repainted both sides of our door and the project took me half the day because I had to wait for everything to dry. I painted one coat on the inside and two full coats on the outside of our door because it was more yellow. 

Heres a side by side comparison for the front door.

Review of the painting the front door: For a project that took me half the day, it didn't make a dramatic difference. Refinishing the door knob alone made a bigger difference. Our front door does look fresher and more coherent with the rest of the house/trim. The whole project cost about $20 for paint and supplies. I still need to scrap off all the excess paint on the glass, remove duct tape along the door, and paint the door bell. I can't wait to officially get rid of all brass colors from our house. 

Future plans for the front door/porch: I plan to do a post about how to decorate the front door without making it look cluttered and sprucing up our front porch on a budget. Heres a sneak peek of my front porch: 

Stay tuned for my upcoming posts. 

Nice flashback

Tonight I was browsing through craigslist to see if there is anything interesting to buy and stumbled upon a post that was really interesting. A while back I refinished an old china cabinet that I got on craigslist for $75. Tonight, I saw the exact same china cabinet being sold by someone else. Here is the post for anyone else who is interested in looking: link If the link no longer works then the seller had removed it.

Just in case you can't view the post, here are some pictures of the china cabinet.

Here are the after pictures of mines: 

I had removed the two middle doors, decorative appliqués on the top of the doors, and patched up some holes with wood filler. Finally I painted the whole chine cabinet with behr paint called french roast. 

This china cabinet was one of the first projects I completed and unfortunately didn't have any before pictures. I can officially add this china cabinet to the before and after pictures. 

Decorating an odd niche

Our master bedroom has an odd niche between the bathroom and bedroom. Its a small space with storage underneath. I love the storage space underneath because the storage is huge. But the top is so odd to decorate. I thought about putting shelves on it but changed my mind because it was too high and deep to reach. The space is nice because there is a pot light on top and crown molding.

I have been looking at model homes and stumbled across a few with the same niche. It was great to see how model homes decorate that niche. Here is a bad picture of one of the model homes. Now the space doesn't feel so odd. Realistically no one in their right mind would have such a nice coffee maker and cup in that niche in their bedroom but the concept was great because it makes me feel so welcomed at the model home. 

So off to Michaels I went to look for more decor to copy.  I love that the frame is hung high and the mat inside is cut so only the top portion of the frame has the picture. It really draws the attention of the eyes upward making the space feel bigger. Plus its cheaper to make smaller art. 

Tip: Remember to measure your space first before purchasing anything. Eye balling never works when it comes to home decor in my opinion. 

Then came another tray that I purchased at Goodwill for $4. This tray was special because its not flat like all the other trays I've refinished. This tray has a crocodile feel to it. It came out great with the glossy white finish. Sorry I don't have a close up after of the tray. I wasn't able to capture the cracks after painting it white. Here's a picture of the tray before I refinished it so you can see the texture.

Here is the odd niche after with a few affordable decorations from Homegoods, Michaels, and Goodwill.  

First off, I bought a really big picture frame from Michaels for $30 with their 40% off coupon. I believe its 24x36.  I ordered a black and white photo print of Binh and I during one of our engagement photoshoots. Binh's cousin Therese did a wonderful job taking Engagement pictures for us and I always wanted to do something with her pictures but wasn't sure what. This picture was perfect for this niche because it really displays the architecture of the building and not us but you can still see us. Notice I also hung the picture high up so the eye travels upwards and makes the niche feel larger. 

Then came some clear candlesticks and a tall vase with dial soap inside. The candle sticks and vase were from Homegoods and cost me a good fortune. Total for three pieces were $40 including candles and soap. I added some dollar tree soap inside the vase for decor and scent. Its a cheap and easy way to make your bedroom smell good.  For some reason the candles look so dark in the picture. They are much lighter and not so dense in person. The candles actually complement the tray really well. 

Heres another picture at a slightly different angle. Every time I walk pass our odd niche I feel like its so girly and glam. It makes me feel fancy. 

Anybody else have an odd niche or spot they have in their home? 

My forbidden zone

I've mentioned before in another post that the two forbidden zones in our house are the pantry and Binh's junk yard/office. Today, I made it a goal to clean up my pantry. Every few months I try to clean out our pantry but it just looks messy no matter how I clean/organize things around.

This is our pantry before:

I have a lot of contact paper from previous projects so I used them to make more decorative boxes using old boxes we have laying around the house. First thing I did was make a large snack box for Emily. The snack box alone was a huge help because we had a lot of smaller boxes of snacks that were taking up a lot of space.  Emily's snack box was her old diaper box. I also used an old container and wrapped contact paper to store all her straws. 

All the cans/soups went into one large container and were placed on the floor. We don't want Emily to accidentally pull one off the shelf and hurt herself. 

I made a medications box for the very top. Its great because now we have a designated place for medications and first aid supplies.  Then I put almost all the dry foods from the middle shelf into a large box. The blue box stores all the dry foods/baking supplies from the middle shelf. 

This is the other side of the pantry. Its hard to take pictures of our whole pantry because its so small. I only have one more baby wipes box to wrap and our pantry will be complete.

This project took me over three hours to organize because Emily wouldn't leave me alone. This project is great because cost for materials was free. I had all the boxes and contact paper. Its amazing what storage boxes can do to make a space feel so much more organized and clean. Believe it or not, I didn't throw anything away except for empty boxes of snacks.  The pantry looks so empty and clean now. The storage boxes piles everything inside upwards so it saves space and makes the whole pantry look clean and empty. I now have a clean and presentable pantry. I am no longer embarrassed of our pantry. 

After wrapping all those boxes, I still have so much more contact paper. I feel like I have a never ending supply of contact paper.  

Hatching up a plan for the kitchen

When we first moved into our home, we refinished our kitchen cabinets. We had the basic builder grade blonde cabinets with granite countertops.

Here are some old pictures: 

              


              


              

Here are the afters: 

      

                 

                  

This is our refrigerator: 

                  

These are pictures that I took tonight: 

I hate looking at our refrigerator because its not built in. I love the look of built in refrigerators but they just aren't in our budget. If you notice, our refrigerator is too small for that space. Our fridge is a pretty good size but the builders of our home decided to make extra space around the fridge. I am guessing its a common trend to have the extra space around the fridge for brooms and stuff. Its a great spot to store my stick vacuum and steam mop but I hate looking at that gap. 

I plan to upgrade our kitchen by building pull out cabinets on the side and extending the cabinets above the fridge so they are even with the fridge instead of having that huge gap in between. The picture below has a pull out cabinet next to the fridge. I love that idea and plan to copy it. 

   

The picture below shows how the upper cabinets are even with the fridge. I plan to do something similar to that. 

  I saw this video on the DIY network and plan to copy it. Heres the link to the video. 

Adding curb appeal

Last week I tackled our ugly brass door knobs. I did the front door knobs last because I was afraid to take it apart. It looks too complicated for me to put back together. The outside looked easy to take apart but when I opened the inside.. I knew that I had to back off so I decided to paint it in place.

Steps are fairly simple:

1. Loosen the screws that are visible and tuck newspaper/magazine paper under the door knob. Before tightening the screws make sure to tuck paper on the other side of the door knobs too.

2.  Clean the door knob with Windex or cleaning solution of your choice. Then spray paint the door knob. When spray painting make sure to use an extra large sheet of paper to catch extra spray paint that can fly to other areas of your door. Or you can use a box and cut out one side to catch all the extra paint. 

3. Wait for the paint to dry and remove the newspaper/magazine paper. If you do get some on your door, you can go to Homedepot and color match your front door with swatches. Just pick a bunch of color swatches that you think looks like your front door and bring it home to get the color that matches the most and ask Homedepot to make it in that color with the sample size paint. The sample size paint cost under $3. 

Review:  Fairly easy project. It was hard to get all the crevices and underside of the door knobs with spray paint because I was constantly afraid of getting it on our white door. I recommend taking off the door knob but make sure you know how to reattach it before taking it apart. 

While doing this project, I realized that my "white" front door is no longer white. It looks like an off white, tinted yellow color. I can't live with an off white door while the rest of our house trim is pure white so next week I will be painting our front door white. If you see the picture below, I didn't bother painting the top door knob because I know I'm going to be painting my door soon. I also plan to spruce up our curb appeal since its something that I've been neglecting since we've moved here. 

***Update on indoor painted door knobs: I love the new dark bronze color. Everything is holding up really well. No chips, no complaints. It looks like we spent a lot of money on updating the door knobs. Our house has mainly cream colored walls so adding dark bronze really makes it stand out nicely. I highly recommend everyone to refinish their door knobs to update their house.  

Goodbye brass doorknob

Our house is fairly new. It wasn't brand new but its under 15 years old. It came with the wonderful brass doorknobs. I've meant to tackle this project a long time ago but was somewhat intimidated by it. It seemed like a big project to me for some reason. The last few days its been really hot so I have been able to work on simpler indoor house projects. Well.. this project wasn't as bad as I had expected in my head.

Supplies that I used:

Rustoleum metallic spray paint $8 at Homedepot
Windex to clean the door knobs
plastic drop cloth
flat head screwdriver
Cordless mechanical screwdriver


Steps:

1. Go to home depot and gather all necessary supplies. I bought the rustoleum spray paint. I already had the plastic drop cloth and other supplies.


On the bottle it states it adheres to wood, metal, plastic, and masonry.. ...  they forgot to mention skin. I got some on my arm and it really won't come off no matter how much I scrub.

2. Remove all door knobs with screwdriver. I used a flat head screwdriver to remove some of the door knobs that were stuck onto the door. Remember to label each door knob to which door it belongs. I made sure to label them with masking tape before moving onto the next door knob. See picture below. As mentioned earlier, it was too hot to paint outside so I laid a plastic drop cloth in our spare guest bedroom and made that my new workstation.  I didn't take the hinges off the door because it was already white.

3.  After removing all the door knobs in your house, spray everything down lightly with Windex. 

Our door knobs were kinda dusty and some had a little bit of paint on them. I sprayed Windex on them to have a cleaner surface to work on. I didn't sand the door knobs because I'm lazy. I've refinished our dressers knobs and its working just fine so I'm hoping our door knobs will work fine too. I sprayed two light coats over my door knobs and waited a whole day before reattaching them to the doors. 

Review: This project was actually pretty easy and went fairly quickly. Removal of all doorknobs in my house took about 45 minutes with the mechanical screwdriver. I did it by myself with no problems. It started to get heavy towards the end but nothing worth mentioning. I feel this project really makes our home feel a little more complete and polished because the brass stood out like a sore thumb. Our home has dark furniture/cabinets so the dark bronze really blends in well. Its one of those details that really makes a difference. 

Here are the before and after pictures. 

 I still have the front door to refinish. I might just tape around it and refinish it on the spot so I don't have to stay home all day. This was a nice little upgrade for our home for under $10.