NOT SO EASY!

Hello, everyone!

Where did this week go?

Before it comes to an end, I wanted to share our latest project.

We finally got brave and stained our front door.

It was something that really needed to be done since the high

temperatures we have every summer in Texas had faded our

front door badly as you can see in this picture.

Before I continue, I have to say, we were not born to stain! LOL

We just can NOT figure out how to do it right.

This turned out to be a very difficult project!

First, we had to take the door down to be able to sand it in the garage.

This door is solid oak and it was so heavy that, that in itself, was a huge job.

Of course, we had to cover the entrance with plastic, to make sure we did not get

any creepy crawlers inside the house. 

Scorpions have been a serious issue this summer and even with the cooler temperatures,

they do not seem to want to go away.

After many hours of sanding and preparing the door for staining,

we applied the first coat.

Oh, boy! That was a real disaster! The color was coming out orange!!!

I know you can't tell very well on the pictures, but believe me, in person, it was orange!

 You want to talk about panicking!!! LOL

After a whole day of sanding, staining, cleaning and sanding some more,

we found ourselves with the sun going down and no front door!!!

With a lot of praying and heavy lifting we got the door back up for the night

and next morning, with the door in place, 

(there was no way we could take it down again)

we went back to work.

It had to be sanded again.

Do I have to tell you the mess that it created inside my house?

And after, came the problem of the stain color.

Don't ask me what is the name of the color we used.

I could never tell you! LOL

We have several cans of different stains in the garage,

so we mixed them, a little bit of this and that, until we came up

with a color that we liked. Just crazy!

After we achieved the desired color, we gave it two coats of satin polyurethane.

Our second issue was the hardware.

We wanted to replace it with something in silver, but,

after checking every store we could think off, we could not

find one that would work for our door.

We are going to have to research this a little further, so, meanwhile, we bought

a special high performance metallic spray paint and gave it a new look.

And here is the finished project.

 Before and after

All in all, it turned out to be a four day project.

Don't laugh! LOL

We are hoping it stays looking like this for many years to come,

because that is how long it is going to take us to recuperate from it.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Ours is going to be "project free"! :)

Until next time!