Just Go With It

Woosh, I have been doing a lot of painting in my house of late. 

As part of my recent painting of the front entrance hall, I also gave the door that leads from the garage to the entrance a nifty new look.

You see, the door that leads to the garage into the house gets seriously banged up -especially from the outside which is shown here. Perhaps it's all the bikes that are getting trekked up and down the stairs (don't even ask) or that the door opens off a stair and often gets nudged open with a foot (guilty), but for whatever reason it takes abuse. 

I came to the conclusion that the door would look best if the paint job did not require surface perfection. I'm not into that shabby chic distressed paint look, so I went with creating a modern graphic coupled with a sanded, matte surface that would still look alright beaten up. 

I titled this post "Just Go With It" but it could just as easily be "Form Follows Function", which is a principle to which I wholeheartedly subscribe. While I'm rambling, this design is a runner up to my first wish -which would be a copper clad door but that is just pure fantasy. 

The shadows from the garage door struts make this a bit hard to read but there are two blue triangles here -a large very visible one at the bottom and a smaller one at the top. My initial instinct was to make two symmetrical triangles meeting in the middle but then when I began taping them off, I realized that the graphic was a bit nautical flag-ish.

I achieved the velvetish surface by first brushing on like 4 or 5 coats of black -giving each 24 hours to cure in between coats. Then after taping the design, I put on two coats of Benjamin Moore Polo Blue. After giving that another 24 hours to cure, I went at it with my sander with 150 grit. The nice surprise was that the Polo Blue sanded out to a lovely lighter but very rich shade.

This door has been hung and functioning for a few weeks now. It already has one nick and some scuffs but it's still ok.

Cheers.