Orange at last

We moved into our house in June, and one of the first things we did was get rid of these doors.

For those of you who are hearing this long, drawn-out story for the first time, we had modern slab doors built and installed early in July, and a week later we had a $100 quote from a painter/handyman who had just done quite a bit of work for us. I texted him the day before he was scheduled to do the job to ask if I needed to buy any supplies, and I received a curt "No" back. That's the last I heard from him. He never showed up and never responded to my subsequent texts trying to find out when, or if, he planned to paint our doors.

All the other painters I had contacted wanted $400-800 for the job, so this is how the doors have looked for almost six months...primed, ready, and waiting for us to paint them.

Finally, after seemingly endless procrastination, I am happy to report that I finished the job yesterday, and this is the front of our house now. In the spring, they will probably get a light sanding and one more coat, but, for now at least, they're done. (After a couple of days of drying time, we just might get some Christmas decorations hung outside. Thank goodness the decorating inside was finished days ago!)

Whew! I had almost given up hope.

Next projects: 

• Taking down those hideously traditional shutters 
• Power washing the brick
• Planning the types of ferns, hostas, and heucheras to plant in the spring

Becoming orange: What a difference a day makes.

I just finished repainting the door frame, and I'm much happier with the color. As I had hoped, this neutral color allows the doors to be the focal point of the front of the house instead of an afterthought.

The new color (Sherwin Williams Quiver Tan) was originally my top choice, but I allowed myself to waver. Although psychologists generally refute the idea that it's best to stick to your original answer on a test, I suspect that the traditional folklore may apply to picking paint colors. I could have saved myself a great deal of work if I had followed my first instinct.

After I take a break for lunch, I'll put the final coat on the doors themselves. I should have hardware reinstalled sometime tomorrow and will post photos. This has been a long time coming, but I think it's almost finished.

Becoming orange: Minor setback

Some of you may remember my post about the flaky painter who left us hanging a few months ago. Failing to find someone who would paint our doors as cheaply as he had quoted, we finally decided to do the job ourselves.

Naturally, neither of us wanted to get out in the 100+ degree summer heat to paint, and we procrastinated our way through the entire fall. Finally, though, it came down to this: Either hang Christmas decorations against white primer...or paint the doors.

We knew that we wanted to use the same orange we chose for the door of the "modernist nest" (Sherwin Williams Copper Mountain), but we weren't sure what color we wanted the door frame. After looking at countless chips, we finally chose a darker orange, just a shade darker than the eaves) and got to work on the trim first.

Not bad in theory...
but the big picture is a no-go

The color brought out the darkest orange in the brick, and we were very pleased with our choice...until we got the first coat of paint on the doors. To our dismay, the trim was visually stronger than the doors themselves and made them look small and insignificant.

We've decided to repaint the trim a neutral grayish brown (the color of the mortar between the bricks and the color of most of the wood trim on the house) which should recede and allow the doors to have the dramatic impact we want. Maybe by the the weekend I will be able to post pictures of the finished job.

I got the lowdown missing painterman blues

In case you didn't see the "before" posts, here are the doors that were on our house when we bought it.

Old doors...now long gone

We knew that they would have to be replaced almost immediately, so one of the first calls we made was to a door company. New slab doors were installed a week ago, and they were scheduled to be painted on Tuesday. (For you longtime readers: Yes, I chose the same Sherwin Williams Copper Mountain that I used on the door of the "modernist nest." I love that color!)

Door at "modernist nest"

We had purchased two narrow star escutcheons from Rejuvenation, and I had shown them to the owner of the door company when he came to give me an estimate, but when the doors arrived, the dead bolt hole was drilled too close to the hole for the doorknob set for them to fit. After a little initial disappointment, I realized that I wasn't really married to the idea of escutcheons anyway, especially when the porch lights were installed and I saw them with the plain knobs, and I definitely didn't want to live with the old doors another two or three weeks while new doors were fabricated. To be honest, the orange paint may be enough of a statement without any extra adornment. If I eventually decide that the doors look too plain, I can always find other escutcheons or add some sort of decorative wood ornamentation.

All that said, the doors are still unpainted. They're sitting in all their white primer glory, waiting on the painter who never showed up.

He was at the house last Saturday installing fans and light fixtures. A painter by trade, he found that he could make good money doing handyman jobs in addition to painting. He was quite personable, very professional, and extremely capable. He said it would take him about an hour to paint the front doors, and he said he would do the job $100, so we agreed on Tuesday at 10 a.m. On Monday I texted him to see if I needed to buy anything besides paint, and he texted back immediately to say I didn't.

On Tuesday, the appointed time came and went, but I wasn't too concerned. Punctuality doesn't seem to be a trait many workmen have these days. Almost everyone who has come to the house to give us an estimate or to do work has blamed traffic for a late arrival.

Sometime after noon, I texted him again to say that I had expected him at 10 o'clock and to ask if we had miscommunicated, which my iPhone auto-corrected to "Did we miscommunication?" (Don't you just love being made to look moronic by a machine?)

I never received a response from him. Did he get a better job offer? Was he involved in a terrible car accident on the way to my house? Was he the victim of an alien abduction?

After getting estimates of $850 and $450 from two major local paint companies...completely absurd for two doors, when painting every room of the house was less than $2000...I will wait to hear from him. I'm disappointed that the doors are still white, and I'm impatient to get the work done, but wait I will. At least for a week or so.

If you run into a painter named Steve, have him text me.
I have a can of orange paint with his name on it.

Green house, orange door

My house got a facelift a few days ago, and it's time for the big reveal. Shutters came down for a less traditional look, and Christmas lights went up (so excuse the extension cord on the porch).

Here's what it looked like before...before the neighbors on either side of me painted their houses tan too:

But that was then, and this is now:

And, yes, the long awaited orange door...

A return to gray days?

My parents bought their first home in 1957. It was in a new subdivision of three-bedroom brick homes with parquet floors that housed hundreds of other thirty-somethings who had come home from World War II and started families.

In the 1940s, most of the brick homes in this part of the country were tan or red, but these suburban homes offered something new called "antique brick," a smoother textured, multi-colored product. Our brick was a deep blue-gray with a bit of orange. The interior of the house was painted a very light gray.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time looking at paint chips and pictures of paint colors from the 1950s. More and more, I'm tempted to go back to those gray days of yesteryear. Here are some examples of popular mid-century paint colors.

yourdrum.com

eichlerforsale.com

modactive.com

populuxebooks.com

erwinhouse.com

erwinhouse.com

New door fever

I found a new toy on one of my favorite sites, and I've been playing with it like a kid on Christmas morning. It's Door-O-Vision on the Crestview Doors site, which allows you to try great mid-century doors on your own house. If you haven't found this tool yet, I think you'd enjoy it too. You can see all their styles in a number of paint and stain colors, as well as a choice of clear or reeded glass.This is fun, even if you're not planning to replace your door anytime soon, but if you are, this should really make you impatient to get the project started. The good news is that Crestview sells DIY door kits online, so you don't have to live in Austin, Texas, to have wonderfully authentic mid-century doors.

My existing blah door,
redeemed only by cool hardware

After seeing pictures of my transformed house, getting a new door moved up several notches on my To Do list.  These are just a few of the  possibilities if I replaced my door with one from Crestview Doors:

Carlysle in Mocha

Street view of Carlysle in Mocha

Langston in Rose

Street view of Langston in Rose

Dupont in Black

Street view of Dupont in Black

Allandale in Pumpkin

Street view of Allandale in Pumpkin

Throckmorton in Mocha

Street view of Throckmorton in Mocha

It was helpful seeing the orange and rose doors, because I was considering painting, but now I think I need a more subdued color like the mocha or black with my wood blinds. I like the style of the Throckmorton, because my house was built in 1950 and doesn't look as wildly mid-century as some of the other houses in my neighborhood built in the late 50s. The Throckmorton seems to bridge the post-war ranch with later styles. 

I also have to consider the multi-paned floor-to-ceiling windows across the front of my house. The Throckmorton seems subtle enough not to compete with the windows for prominence. Some of the styles I tried gave the front of the house the appearance of being too "busy." 

Finally, I like the Throckmorton from a security standpoint. I live in a large urban area, and while my neighborhood is very safe, break-ins aren't unknown, and the glass is high enough not to be near the deadbolt. I love the Carlysle, and I think the Langston in mocha would look great too, but I'm a little concerned about the glass placement.  What do you think?