Some projects crawl along at a snails pace.  Either because of time or budget or because you just don’t know exactly what you want your final vision to be.  Some times you try something and decide that your changes aren’t what you expected or aren’t “enough” and it feels like you will never be finished.

My front door has been one of those projects.

When we first moved into the house it was so bad that I had to do something RIGHT THEN to update it.  Because I didn’t have the money or HOA approval to make major changes, I could only update it partially.

Here is the front door when we moved in:

The first thing I did (about 3 years ago) was spray paint the hardware.  At the time we didn’t have the money to completely change it, but I couldn’t stand to look at the tarnished brass one more minute:

I have been really impressed with how well that paint has held up.   This is what the hardware looked like 3 years later.
Not even a scratch.  I think the key was that I sanded it really really well and did a lot of thin coats.

The other update I added was our house numbers.  And this is how the door looked for about two years:

Here is the door during Christmas of 2012:

I never loved the front door color, but it was controlled by the HOA. The siding of the house and the door were the EXACT.SAME.COLOR (I think this was a budget issue, since it was easier for the painters to just paint everything at once.)

So I petitioned the HOA to change my door color.  I wanted high contrast and so as a test I painted the interior garage door black and I just loved the results:

The HOA agreed to my request and although you may have not noticed, back in October my “new” front door made it’s first appearance:

You can see it is still sporting the original spray painted door handle, but the black made a huge difference. The numbers on the door are so much more obvious.
 Here it Christmas 2013:


Well, the time has come and I finally had the budget to replace the door hardware.  The last step of the complete transformation.  I decided to replace the old hardware with the Kwickset Hawthorne Sectional Handleset in brushed nickel.

I am also currently replacing all the my interior door hardware, and decided on black, but I had to leave the exterior hardware nickel so it would show up against the black door. I liked the square mounting hardware a lot more than the original oval, and the whole set is a lot “beefier."

 Here is the whole door today (completely and FINALLY finished!)


The whole front porch is just more welcoming than the monochromatic nothing-ness that was the before:

And it only took three years!

Do you have any of those projects that just *never* seem to get finished.  They are a constant work in progress?  This is just one of many of mine.