Odd Inspiration

We finally got around to something that was on our notional to-do list for a few years - paint the front door. The black was a faded dingy not-so-black. And the dark color trapped so much heat between the storm door that opening it in even a 65 degree sunny day was a blast from a furnace.

I've taken many walks around the neighborhood to try to find inspiration but never could settle on a color. And I recently found my inspiration in the oddest place:

A cute outfit I bought my baby last weekend in the loveliest soft blue-green immediately made me think of what a beautiful color it would be for our front door. And this weekend was the perfect time to do it - warm and cool enough that we could keep the door open and dry enough that we wouldn't have to deal with humidity slowing down the time between coats. 

So armed with a pair of 3-6 month-old pants, I set off off the paint store. We usually stick to Sherwin Williams but a few blogs I read recommended Benjamin Moore, so we decided to try them instead. I purchased a quart of Aura for exteriors after the woman at the store told me that, even though I was painting a light color on black, it was guaranteed to cover in two coats with no primer. Also bucking our usual policy of buying a few sample colors, I compared a few of the paint tiles and picked a color within 5 minutes. Can you guess which?

I went for the second tile from the left on the bottom strip, Sea Mist Green. I almost chickened out and went for the more muted, grayer Covington Blue (top right) but decided against it.

Meanwhile, D was busy removing the hardware from the door:

You can see how much the black had faded from where it was covered by the door pull:

And so the painting began. Since I usually do the jobs that requires a brush and a steady hand, D watched the baby and assisted (and took photos) while I did the work. First, cut in and fill in the panels, doing my best not to create drips:

Then the inner cross beams and then the outside. Here it is after one coat - they were not kidding when they said Aura would be able to cover up the black.

Here it is all finished the next morning with the hardware back on (even though we could recoat a within a half hour - we waited until just before bed to put the hardware back on to really let the paint dry).

The only problem is that whoever painted the door black painted the inside edge of the hinge side black as well:

See it there, with a little of the new aqua where I let the brush go around the corner?

I was planning to use a little artist's paint brush there to cover the black today, but we realized it might look weird with a little strip of aqua paint visible on the inside of the house - the black mostly looks like a dark shadow. Ideally this edge would be white, but we don't have the original white paint used on the door and we learned once before that getting the "right" shade of white is important. So we're just going to leave it black for now until/if we paint the white door and all the trim.

And so ta-dah - here's our cheery door, all for only $25 of paint and a couple hours of effort: