A Painting We Will Go

On Monday and Wednesday mornings, Little Man goes to a Mother's Morning Out program for three hours.  When you subtract the time I spend on the road, that gives me a little over two-and-a-half hours to run my errands, clean the house, wash the laundry, and, yesterday, paint.  Ever since I repainted the cabinets in the den I have wanted to paint the rest of the trim in the house in a white, semi-gloss paint.  With a two-year-old running around, however, that is a difficult and messy task.  I kept planning to get it done while he was at school, and it just kept not happening.  This week, though, I made double sure I didn't have anything else to do on Wednesday.  I ran all of my errands and did all of my cleaning on Monday.  I already had all of the supplies I needed and list of what to paint ready to go.  I was going to get the baseboards in the great room, hall, and Little Man's room done and the living room side of the hall door  covered in paint.  Half-way through gathering my painting gear I decided to paint the front door.  Without asking anyone first.  Then I realized that not only was I a grown-up but the owner of the house.  So I went for it.  Mr. Chadwick's response to projects is typically apathetic ("Go for it" "Whatever" "If you think it will work" etc.), so I was of the opinion that he really wouldn't care.  **Disclaimer:  Not all husbands are like this.  You should probably run painting projects by them first to make sure you don't get into trouble.  However, I'm pretty sure that my dear beloved wouldn't have noticed the different paint color until he read this if I hadn't shown him.**  Ahem.  

 I started my painting by priming the front door first with the intention of painting it with the same white semi-gloss I was using everywhere else.  And then it hit me.  All of the leftover paint from the previous owners was still in the house.  I wonder what's there??  Turns out, there's a whole heap-a mess of paint leftover from the 2005 remodel (the receipts are taped to the tops of the cans).  As much as I don't like the paint in the den, I decided to use the rest of that sage green on the door.  After all, it's not that I don't like the color.  I just don't really like it in such a large space.  I made sure I started with the front door so I would be able to close and lock it when I went to get Little Man from school.  One robbery per year is my limit.  Since the original color of the front door was a really dark green, it never crossed my mind that the door could be seen from the road.  It's amazing what two really bad coats of white primer can accomplish.  

Turns out this was highly visible from the road for the thirty minutes I was gone (along with the yard that needs to be mowed and the flower beds full of weeds...).  Oh, well.  The door only needed one coat of the sage paint after that, and it was so very worth it.  Behold the before and afters:

So very, very much better.  The chipped, dark paint is gone.  The only problem I have now, is that the door was painted to match the shutters on the outside of the house.  I guess now I have to get out there and paint those jokers.  They're going to be white, by the way.  So I got a front door make-over for absolutely no cost with absolutely no planning.  Amazing, huh?  I think I may even cross Get A New Front Door off of my list.  

The rest of the painting I did was very straight-forward.  While I waited for the primer to dry, I painted the baseboards and put one coat of paint on the door in the great room.  We still intend to put quarter round on all of the baseboards like we did in here, but the Coach is so busy after school and on the weekends now with soccer that I feel terrible asking him to take on any projects.  But at the same time, I'm quite tired of looking at grungy baseboards.  

From this:

To this:

And from this:

To this:

The white great room door is the hardest to see the change in from the pictures, but I'll show you anyway.

As I said, it's not as startling a difference in a photograph as the front door, but in real life, I find it remarkable.  And to think that this door is what started it all...