Sprucing up the Garage - Painting the Door

As I posted yesterday, I spent Saturday morning cleaning out my garage and Sunday painting my garage door.  I thought I’d post today about how I did it.  This was actually one of the easiest projects I’ve ever undertaken (once the incredibly heavy door was taken down), so if you’ve ever really wanted to paint a door, but were too nervous to do it, read on:

First, we had to get down the door.  This is an exterior door, so it is solid and HEAVY.  Once we got it down, I behaved like a big girl and taped up the sides and the handle and deadbolt.  I used a plastic baggy over the handle and then just taped it down. 

(One note, the tape I used didn’t cover the entire width of the sides.  I forgot about that and wasn’t careful, so I got a bit of overspray on the sides.  It’s not bothering me much, but you should either use wider tape or be more careful than I was.)

Then I sanded the door to rough it up and get any major junk off.

It’s good if you can get some help…

Once the sanding was complete, I wiped the whole door down and went to work with my spray paint.  I used Valspar Mediterranean blue.

Since I figured any drips would really drive me nuts as I walked through the door every day, I made sure to put on several light coats.

(I did find that I started having issues with my first can of paint covering at all.  I think the nozzle was probably clogged a bit because the can still had plenty in it.  I switched to the other can and the paint came out in nice even coats once again.)

 
 
When I pulled the tape off the door handle, I realized that the tape had covered part of the door and that I had a white spot under the handle.  To fix that, I just sprayed some paint into a paper plate and touched it up with a small craft paint brush.

Since I was on a painting roll, I also pulled down the hand rail, gave it a light sanding…

And then just ONE coat of Rustoleum’s Ultracover 2x Spray paint.  That stuff covers amazingly well!

 
Once the door was dry, I had my husband and his friend put the door back up (good job guys!) and here’s how it looks now!

I’ve walked through it about 20 times so far and I smile at it every time!

I’m linking up to these parties: