My First (and maybe last) Home Improvement Project

A note to my readers... I started writing this post about a year ago, but never posted it. Mainly because I was lazy and didn't feel like downloading the pictures from my phone to my computer to complete the post. But finally I did, so here it goes...

Last year I decided to tackle my first home improvement project. I bought my home in 2012 and it was built in 2006, so there really isn't much that is required in the way of home improvement. My task was to re-stain the front door. It gets a lot of west sun exposure and was looking a little faded in spots.

The Front Door: Before

Before I delved in, I discussed the project with my dad... "You probably don't even have to re-stain it" he said. "In our old house in Sugar Land, I was able to rejuvenate the doors simply by applying a coat of tung oil finish" he continued. This sounded like a brilliant idea as it didn't require me to match the existing stain. So one Saturday morning I trekked over to Lowe's to purchase tung oil finish and lots of painting rags. Easy-peasy and cheap! "This project is going to be a snap and I'll be finished by lunchtime" I thought to myself.

I arrived home with my loot and got straight to work... After about thirty seconds of rubbing the tung oil finish onto the door I realized this was not going to work. Big chunks of stain and polyurethane started flaking off the door and onto the rag. Okay... back to the drawing board and to the phone to call my dad. "Well, you'll probably have to re-stain the door then. You might want to sand off the existing finish before you begin though. Buy one of those hand-held sanders to speed up the project."

Well, if I was going to have to sand the door, I was going to have to remove the iron work, so why not just repaint that too? So I got to work removing the iron work and don't you know some of the screws were stripped and rusted. So... back to the phone... "There's a tool for removing stripped screws. Call your brother, he probably has one and can help."

Somewhere in the middle of all this I went to get my nails done. I know what you are thinking... Why on earth would I go get my nails done in the middle of sanding and staining a door. I think I already had the appointment scheduled... and my nails really were in bad shape.

When I arrived home, my brother was already there and had removed the iron work. Great! Now I was ready to get started again. So back to Lowe's I went. I loaded my cart with a new shade of stain, more painting rags, disposable face masks, drop cloths, a fancy new hand-held sander, sanding blocks for the corners and crevices, black spray paint, wood screws, and allen set screws... which required a trip to Home Depot because Lowe's didn't have the right size allen set screws.

Finally I was back home and ready to go... I started sanding the door and it was going great! Smooth sailing... this was going to be a breeze! Until I got to the parts of the door that didn't get sun exposure and all of the stain and polyurethane were intact. And then I ran out of sand paper. I had assumed the amount included with the sander would be enough. Incorrect. So back to Lowe's I went, again. "Hey Rebecca!" they called as I walked in. Not really, but I felt like some of the employees were looking at me funny. Like they were thinking "Is this really her third trip here? Or has she just been wandering around the store for 7 hours?" I loaded up on three different types of sandpaper and got the heck out of there!

After a few more hours the door was finally sanded and it was time to start staining. This was the easy part... pour some stain on a rag, rub it into the wood, repeat until door is covered, let sit for 30 minutes, wipe off. Repeat again. Done. Oh wait, you have to let it dry... for a LONG time. So maybe I don't want to start this at 6pm... Obviously I was not going to leave the door open to all of the burglars and murderers that come out at night, so the staining would have to wait until Sunday.

Come Sunday morning, I was back at it, staining was easy! It was the sanding that was the hard part. And then I noticed the stain around the door hardware... maybe I should have taken that off during the sanding phase? Dang it! So the sanding wasn't quite over just yet.

Staining is easy!

Eventually, the sanding and staining, and eight hours of drying were finished and I could put the door back together. Oh, I forgot to mention, at some point during all of this, I spray painted the iron hardware that goes over the glass.

The only thing left to do was replace the lock, door handle, and door bell. I purchased all new hardware to match the iron hardware already on the door. But I had to wait for help with that, so this is the semi-finished look of the door, complete with a photo-bomb by Ava.

The Front Door: Semi-Complete

And finally a few weeks later, the final final look with all the new hardware! And apparently, a new plant too.

The Front Door: A Final Look