I started to spruce up the entry to my house.
It’s so neglected because we mostly use the garage door to come and go, so we rarely see how terrible the front entry looks. I’ve had a gallon of Behr paint hanging around for a while from various other projects(insides of the front doors and kitchen window frames) so I finally got out there and painted. Just the paint made such a huge difference! But I had it in my minds eye to put my house number and a greeting on the door. After looking around a bit I decided to go the traditional route and use “Welcome” in a very traditional font… because that’s the kinda gal I am.
I used the old “tracing paper” method I’ve used a hundred times in my painting business. I printed the numbers and the greeting the proper size for my door. Then I hung the paper on the sliding door and used a soft pencil to lay down a heavy layer of graphite on the back of the paper. Essentially creating transfer paper. Sometimes I use vine charcoal or even white chalk depending upon what color I’m painting over. The vine charcoal is much faster so if your doing a large piece it will expedite the process tremendously. Chalk is good for projects with a very dark base coat.
Then I just taped the numbers to the door and carefully traced the outline of the letters, leaving beautifully outlined letters to then fill in with paint. I pulled out the Martha Stewart metallic gold paint and my fave paint brush…a number 6 round.
The next step takes a steady hand, but if you’ve eaten breakfast and not had too much coffee you ought to be good to go. This tracing paper method is so effective for soooo many paint projects….signs, murals, faux wallpaper. I sometimes go to a copy center to enlarge my designs for extra large paintings and signs.
Before…
after…Of course the ferns help too. Next up …
- new lights on each side of the doors
- beefed up columns
- different tile or stone to replace the red tile
- paint the 1970’s brick house
- New handle set…something big and brass!
One thing leads to another!
