This is part of a little series called Heardmont History. We’re digging back through our archives and highlighting some projects we did before starting “Welcome to Heardmont.” Hope you enjoy!
The day we closed on our first place, lovingly nicknamed Heardmont, we knew we’d signed up for a lot of work.
The first thing we changed were the locks on the front and side doors. Our front door had seen better days and the 80s brown color wasn’t helping.
Of course I never took a photo of the door in its true “before” state, but I did manage to snap a (blurry) photo of the old door hardware. Lovely. Our house was GOTH before goth was cool. At least the finish matched our old kitchen cabinet hardware, I guess.
We chose a nice heavy brushed nickel deadbolt and door handle. You could still see the marks in the door where the old hardware lived for 30 years.
Our front door stayed like this for quite awhile, until after we’d torn down a wall, painted kitchen cabinets, scraped popcorn ceilings, and installed the new lighting you see in the background. Then it was time to take the new hardware back off the door and sand down all the dents and dings.
Here’s a closeup of all the damage the original hardware did.
We primed with my favorite KILZ2 primer to cover up that awful brown.
Then it was time to paint! Stephen did most of the painting on this project and luckily we chose a red that only took 2 coats. This was before I knew about paint additives that give ultra smooth finishes, but Mr. Heard actually prefers the brushed-on look so all’s well that ends well!
We change out our wreaths seasonally. If you’ll remember, here’s what the front door looked around Halloween this year. A million times better than brown and gothic, right?
I have big goals for our curb appeal this spring, one of them being replacing our (you guessed it) BROWN screen door with one of these retractable screens. Then we’ll really get to appreciate our new red door!
If you’re thinking about adding a little zing to your curb appeal, I can’t recommend a better way than to freshen that front door with a new paint color. Thanks for reading and come back soon for more Heardmont History!
