Accent Door

Hey everyone!  Hope ya'll are having a wonderful weekend so far.  It's a bit rainy here in G-town Louisian, but it's still the weekend.  And I love the rain!  Perfect excuse to get cozy with a good book, or in my case, post a blog.  LOL!

I've actually been meaning to post this for 2 weeks now, so I am so sorry this hasn't gone up sooner.  If ya'll have seen my "Let's Talk" video back in February, then you know I am in the midst of redecorating.  Along with redecorating, I'm also "revamping" some pieces.  I've been wanting an accent door in my kitchen for the longest.  It finally happened about 2 weeks ago.  I researched a lot on how to go about doing this, but there wasn't much out there for me to go by.  I did get some tips from this guy here, but kinda just went with the flow.  So I thought I would share with you my take on how to paint an accent door.  Where ever it may be in your home.  For me, it was my kitchen.  I have a walk-in pantry that was screaming to be different.  LOL!  Here's a before look.

Boring right?

So, first I removed the handle and hardware.

Then I sanded it using an 80 grit piece of sand paper.

Keep in mind that this door had a LOT of paint on it and I wanted to partially get down to the wood.  So sand accordingly to your preference.  Tip..the lower the number, the more aggressive the grit.  Once that was done to my liking, I wiped it down with a wet washcloth and waited for it to dry.  The reason for not drying it with a dry towel is so no lent or any other particle settled on the door.

Here's what it looked like after sanding.

Oh!  Very important!  Don't forget to cover your floor and surrounding area with a sheet to protect them.

I waited about 30 minutes for it to dry.  And then the painting began.  I was very nervous during this process.  I've never done this before and I don't really think of myself as a crafty person.  Although I would like to.  

I knew I wanted an antique green.  After lots of Lowes trips and paint swatches, I finally settled on this one called Pine Needles by Valspar.  

The lady at the paint counter was very helpful and suggested that we could just use paint samples if we were just painting one door.  So we got 2 to be on the safe side at a whopping $2.50 each.

We used maybe a little over a half of one of them.  So I'm sure I'll be finding other pieces around the house to paint ;)

And the painting began.....

After putting on the first coat, I really liked how it came out.  So I just stopped there.  Some of the white of the door was peeking through which is exactly what I had envisioned in my head.  Hence the usage of so little paint.  Here's a look after 1 coat.

Bella was totally helping.  LOL!  I think she was after a dragon fly if I remember correctly.  But she was all up into my little project here.  #curiouskitty

I didn't get a picture of me doing this cause I was seriously in the zone at that point, but I took a taupey brown color and sparatically painted over the green.  Not fully covering the green.  I wanted a distressed look.  Here's a pic of what the door looked like after that.

 See what I mean?  I just messily smeared brown paint on it.  LOL!  I actually used our bedroom paint.  While we were painting our bedroom almost 9 yrs ago, we referred to the room as "the poo room".  It really looked like someone smeared baby poop everywhere.  LMBO!  But I promise, once it dried, it turned out to be really pretty.  But we had some left over and it turned out to be the perfect color I wanted to distress with.

 Thanks to my mad organization skills (commonly known as OCD), I kept a folder of everything we did in the house while we were building.  Including our paint colors.  So I can proudly tell you that the color I used to distress the door is Brown Moss.

I let that dry over night.  The next day I used a 150 grit piece of sand paper to "lightly" sand over the entire door.  I did this to sort of blend out the brown color so to speak.  You don't want to sand any color off.  Just lighten it up maybe.

After that I wiped it down once again with a wet washcloth and let it dry again for about 30 minutes.

Next step...sealing.  Now this is the key part.  I used a polyurethane stain to seal and make everything come together.  I used Pecan Satin.  I didn't want the stain to take over if you know what I mean.  Just to add to the distressing of the door.

To do this method, I used a sponge brush.  You can get these really cheap at Lowes or even at the Dollar Store.  

To paint the door, I just used a regular straight paint brush.  To apply the brown paint, I used a more stiffer brush that we had in our 'house building supplies".  

The brush on the left is the stiffer brush.  And the brush on the right is just a regular paint brush we picked up at Lowes while getting the paint.  And the sponge brush in the middle.

Anyway, remember, as you're staining, you must wipe away the stain with either a paper towel or clean cloth.  It will look scary at first while you're staining/sealing.  I stained a section at a time followed by a quick wipe of a paper towel.

Just to warn you...you will get your hands dirty doing this.  LOL!  Stain is pretty messy.  But it made the look of my door come together.  I'm so excited about it and really proud of myself.  Just shows you that if you really put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.  I even put on the new door handle and hardware all by myself!  Here are a few pics of the finished product.

So much more interesting.  Don't you think?  Now, all that's missing is my new rug for my table ;)  

More redecorating post coming your way.  Just forewarning you.  LOL!  

Hope you enjoyed this post.  And I hope that maybe it was helpful if you're thinking about doing something like this yourself.  I thoroughly enjoyed this project.  Next up!  Chalkboard Wall!  

Till next time Loves,

Aimee Lou