House of a Pink Door

People either love or hate painting. I love it. It is a rather small and simple thing but can be nothing short of transformative. I’m going to share the first 5 colors I’ve used so far over the next few weeks, (most of which are stolen from other projects I’ve seen), and if you love any, steal away as well! I’ve wasted a lot of time in my lifetime sifting through old paint cans trying to find the right color, only to give up and take a sample piece in to the store to match. Well, no more!! I finally grabbed some stir sticks, and dipped and labeled them. Don’t forget to jot down the sheen used and which room it went in. You’ll be thankful later, I promise. Lately I have been partial to Sherwin-Williams paint for several reasons; First, I am finding that the quality is a bit higher than other paints I have used, it doesn’t seem to glop as much (except for when applied by three year-olds) and the main reason: the store is ridiculously close to our house.

I’ve done a good bit of painting in my life thus far, but today was a first; I let my three year-old help me. If you don’t understand what the big deal is, I’m pretty particular about my painting approach. I don’t even like Ronny helping me (he changes rolling direction all over the place!!). I’m a bit old fashioned with my style and prefer a brush and roller to a sprayer. I used to turn on my music, but I now generally dive into my podcast queue and get to work in solitude late at night. I think painting can be the biggest (and often the cheapest!) game-changer for a room…especially when that room is painted dark, golden brown.

This house is like 50 shades of crap. There’s different hues of brown all over the place and they went all the way too – painting closets and inside the drawers with it. And to top it off, they were terrible painters. Not just Ronny bad, but really bad. It was smeared on fixtures, trim, door jams, curtain rods…they were either drunk or three years old. And I say that because I painted with a three year old today, and I’m pretty sure she’s a tad more proficient than whoever painted this house previously. Brown is also an intense color to change out. The darkest shade they used is taking me two coats of primer to fully mask it before applying the actual paint. Couple that with the fact that I work in 2-3 minute intervals before someone needs a snack or has an injury…and ya it’s a long shot to have the interior fully painted by 2021. When the last brown wall is changed out here, we will be definitely be opening a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

But todays’ project was a bit different. For once I wasn’t painting the brown I have been working so hard to eradicate for the past few weeks. I’ve always loved pink and for quite a while I’ve been in love with the idea of a pink front door. Ronny is pretty cool with the girliness at this point within our house, but he was not sold on my pink door idea at all. He wants a big, wooden, manly door. But we aren’t changing out this old door til we redo the siding on the house for another year or so. So given that the front door currently is very old, very ugly, not long for this world, and honestly can’t look much worse than it does now, Brighton and I decided to paint it. We waited til Ronny had left for work and Saylor was down for her nap. Brighton was in heaven with this project. She just learned how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she paints with exactly the same technique.

This is not a marriage blog and just to be clear, I am not endorsing doing what you want against your spouse’s wishes as soon as they leave for work. But you can also infer what you will. The girls are ecstatic with our new door and Ronny barely even noticed. I was slightly disappointed by how little he cared, as if he knew I was going to do it all along. Or maybe he has just given up.