Before & After-Front Door Makeover

As I'd said previously I've been trying to create some curb appeal with our front door area. One big step  (super easy and cheap!) was to paint our doldrum front door. Here's what I was working with:

Pretty bland, not too great as far as "appeal" goes (in my mind). It was this marroon-y brown which was just...blah.

So, I decided red was a must. I know it's nothing new or inventive but red is a tried and true color for doors which give the house some life and can really punch up the drama. So off to the store to buy supplies.

I started by priming my door (suggested by the employee at Home Depot):

Sorry for the poor pictures. It was overcast and I was lazy. It's a gray tinted primer and I believe I put on 2 coats. (first remove your door hardware).

I also decided to paint (inexpensive option) my hardware instead of replacing them (more expensive).

The hardware was this tacky brassy handle but I figured a couple of coats of black would look much better.

I bought a can of black spray paint (specifically for metal fixtures) for approx 3.00 (instead of the 25.00+ it may have cost to replace the hardware all together).

Here's the hardware after 1 coat:

Not a huge noticeable difference but after 2 more coats we were in business.

After painting 3 coats of my lovely red (I don't recall the exact color -it was Glidden) and replacing the hardware it was looking fantastic! But I still wanted to make it a little bit more special.

So, I decided to paint our house numbers on my door. Like this:

This was easy and cost me 0 dollars. Sure, I could have made it easier and purchased vinyl lettering for very little but which is better-very little or none at all? (monetarily speaking)

I started with finding a font I liked and a size that worked for my door and printed it off my computer:

Then, in order to make it easy to transfer-I shaded in the back of my picture completely- like this:

I cut around the numbers as close as possible in order to align it correctly. Then I taped it to the door, making sure that it was straight and evenly spaced:

All it required was tracing the numbers which transfers the graphite on the back of the paper to the door:

After which, I used black acryllic paint to fill in and voila!

 This process only took about 45minutes and most of that was the precision of the black paint on the door.

I also applied a coat of poly to it to protect it and it's good as new:

This project took no more than 5-6 hours total from start to finish (painting the door to stensiling to poly), though I did break it up in order to let the paint dry.

And the before and after:

Every time I look at my door now I feel happy instead of bleak and it certainly looks more welcoming rather than depressing.