Same Door, New Look

Hi guys! Well, I always hope to have my posts done first thing in the morning these days, but I was still finishing up this project a few hours ago. I can't take credit for most of it, though. My husband did the heavy lifting on this one...I just painted.

So the dillio is this: we have done most of our foyer over by this point. So far, we've put in a new front door, new flooring, we put new doors on one closet and eliminated another in favor of a mudroom-type-space, wallpapered the half-bath, and added a large mirror, entry shelf and an antique, upholstered trunk. Whew. But the thing is, I kept staring at the steel door to our garage whenever I sat on our sectional in my favorite spot. And it was dingy, dented, completely plain, and had a faux-brass knob. Ew.

So I had the thought to add molding to the door to make it look like it was a raised-panel door (which is what my husband said they were called...I had no idea). And it worked! We located some molding that is flat on one side so it could be easily attached to the door, and my husband got to work. You can see his process in the pictures below.

Now, I'm not a carpenter. I should learn how to miter corners and such, but since my better half can do it so easily and quickly, I haven't been too motivated to figure it out. He did take the door off its hinges, and used the measurements from our bathroom door (which is right next to the garage door), to mark out where the molding should go. After cutting the lengths and mitering the corners, he used Liquid Nails to just glue it on. Since its a steel door, that was really the best option.

Finally, I primed and painted it. I also spray painted the door knob in hammered bronze. To make this easier, I stuck the stem of each knob in some floral foam so I could spray all sides without having to lay them down and risk smudging them. And here is the finished side-by-side:

We both were quite surprised at how this dramatically changed the "class-factor" of our foyer. What was once an eyesore, is now an integrated element of our foyer. It no longer looks like a 1970s builder-grade door, that's for sure. But we only spent about $40 to upgrade it, so that made us both happy.