Because I've Always Wanted to See a Blue Door.

Today's installment of Give Me Attention features an often-used door in a seldom-used basement. Behind this door is the only unfinished room in the house, and it contains our storage and laundry machines. So with two kids, the room definitely gets a workout. And now that i'm seeing in print just how much this room is used, maybe i should make it pretty? Moving on, here's the door:

(The door on the left leads to a powder room.)

I started out by removing that sexy brass doorknob and wiping everything down with a damp cloth.

Weird sidenote, i told Chris i wanted to paint this door robin's egg blue, a color i decided upon instantly and out of nowhere. So one day as we were trolling through The Deeps (Home Depot for you non-abbrevers) i found this paint on the scrap shelves:

A quart of Behr interior eggshell enamel for $2?? Meant to be.

I would have preferred a satin (as opposed to eggshell) with this door since i clean it often, but i wasn't going to argue with the $2 price. So anyhoots, i gathered my supplies. The roller i chose is one of those really smooth ones that you'd use to paint furniture. I chose that roller for two reasons: 1, i'm lazy and didn't feel like looking around for another roller, and 2., i'm impatient and didn't feel like waiting until the next time i went out to pick up another roller. Smooth it was.

I started with painting my outlines, which would be the areas around the windows and the edge of the door that meets the hinges.

I used a paint card as a barrier between my brush and the trim because i hate taping. I hate taping as much as i hate painting closets, or getting punched in the face.

Here's what it looked like when the outlines were painted:

Now here comes the fun part: drinking. Sike, that's later. It's time for the roller:

And here's what it looked like when that part was done:

Almost done! I knew i wanted to do a second coat, so while this was drying, i took those brass doorknobs out back and shot 'em.  ....with silver spraypaint! Har harrr.

Lucky for me, i already had the spraypaint on-hand. So after i laid down a cloth tarp, i shoved the spikes into the soft ground so i could get everything at once. Here's what they looked like after one coat:

Back to the door. After letting the paint dry and then doing a second coat and letting that dry as well, it was time to clean off the windows. As previously mentioned, i don't tape if i don't have to. Plus, the tape probably wouldn't have been 100% perfect anyway, so i just cut to the case and got at it with a blade. First, i scored down the glass so the paint wouldn't be tempted to peel off the door.

Then i got at it with the blade. Story of my life, amiright?

After that was done, i put the doorknobs back on.

And there you have it. My robins egg blue door. Homegirl does not play.

And here are my Before&After shots so you can see them right next to each other.

Total cost for this whole project: $2, since i had the spraypaint, roller, and tray liner on-hand. It's too bad that this door doesn't lead to somewhere more fun, like a room-sized moonbounce or a Krispy Kreme...

Kid Table Refinish

This refinish is 11 months in the making. My daughter got this for Christmas last year and i finally got around to making it pretty.

First, this table & chair set is LATT from Ikea and it cost $20 for the set. It's rather plain, but luckily it responds to a makeover rather well. Kind of like me. Second, i already had the spraypaint on-hand, so this project was free.

I wanted to keep the tops white, so i taped construction paper to the tops to protect it from the paint. Unfortunately for me, i'm pretty impatient so i used packing tape instead of waiting to pick up masking tape the next time i went out. It was a HUGE pain, but still better than waiting.

 And this is what it looked like all taped up.

So i took it outside and laid it on a heavy cloth tarp to spray it. I chose bronze for the table (it has a metallic finish i'm not sure you can really see in the pics) and blue for the chairs.

Much less of an eyesore, amiright??