My door now spells "Welcome!"

 I've been thinking about how my house feels lately, and I've started taking the dark, unpleasant parts of it and trying to figure out how to make them more welcoming.  I decided to start at the most logical place: the front door.  This is what greeted me every day after work...

It's pretty uninspiring and not particularly welcoming.  It also didn't coordinate with any of the paint on our house anymore since we painted it white with Michigan State green trim (Go MSU!).  I don't know why it took me so long to tackle it after we painted the house (um...two years? totally embarassing), but I was having the first party ever at my house and wanted to put my happiest foot forward.  Earlier I had sprayed the antique brass (only "antiqued" cause it was so old and beat up) hardware with oil-rubbed bronze spray paint, and it has held up pretty well so far.  A few nicks and scrapes, but we will probably replace it all soon anyway.  

First step was to prime the door, and I used Zinnser Cover Stain oil-based primer (my favorite) since it doesn't really necessitate too much prep work.  You can even use the stuff straight on laminate without a bubble.  Amazing.  The blue was pretty high gloss, so I wanted to make sure the new stuff would stick.

Not the prettiest sight, but I knew it would give way to greatness.  Or at least something I could get excited about.  Now for the color...I wanted something cheery that said, "Welcome Home!" and wore pig-tails and had an endearing chip in its tooth and smelled like freshly mowed grass or something like that, and this is what I came up with.

I used Behr semi-gloss and custom color matched some other sample I had found.  I love it!  I feel like it is a breath of fresh air, and it actually has a positive side effect of brightening the whole entry to the house.  Even at night, we can actually see the keyhole because we have more light bouncing around.  Yes, it's bold.  Yes, it's a little crazy.  Yes, we have a door that doesn't match the color of the rest of the trim.  And I am enamored.  

It even has presence behind a pretty banged up glass door.  I feel like my door almost needs a name now.  Daisy Mae? I've got mad plans to update the rest of this little part of the house including that ugly lightbox thing, replacing the broken doorbell, and some container plant action.  We'll see how it progresses!