Home and Family: Prepping a Door for Painting

As I mentioned, I am working on updating the front door with a fresh coat of paint. I went to Home Depot the other day and brought home lots of paint swatches. We've always used Behr paint so that's mostly what I picked up, but I also got some Martha Stewart and Glidden swatches.

From this big pile, I narrowed it down to these.

And from there to here:

My hubby wasn't crazy about the yellow so we nixed that and agreed that red would be the best color. It's called "Licorice Stick" by Behr. Once we settled on the color, it was time to start prepping the door for paint.

I mentioned in my previous post that there was some cracking around where we had the original mail slot filled in. Not pretty! The key to success in any paint job is the preparation so I got to work.

I used DryDex spackling which I love because it's easy to apply and it turns white when it's dry so you know when you can start sanding. I used it in my mudroom project and it was great. You'll also want a putty knife and sand paper.

Just apply a thin bead of spackle...

And use the putty knife to smooth it out and really push it into the cracks.

When I was finished in that area, this is what it looked like:

And here it is when it's dry, before being sanded.

There was also another major sore spot towards the top of the door that needed some work. (Not sure why I'm pointing this out to the world, but that is a dead, smashed bug on the top. Ugh!)

Spackled...

Smooth and bug-free!

There was also some crackling by the raised panels. In places like this, it's helpful to have a latex glove so you can smooth it with your finger because a putty knife wouldn't work in small nooks like this.

Since I had all the right supplies out, I figured it was a good time to take care of a hole in the dining room that was exposed ever since I hung the gallery wall. I'll have to touch up that paint now, but that should be a quick job.