Let’s start by saying I thought this would be a quick DIY, I mean, there are plenty of tutorials out there that show a glamorous before and after front door makeover seemingly in a day. Well, those tutorials never met my front door.
In my exhaustive search of all things ‘front door redo’, I also had a tough time finding a tutorial that showed the paint stripping process. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to add one to the blogosphere!
I’m not going to sugar coat things…this was one tough mutha. I had sweat dripping down my back, paint chips in my ears and places least expected, and I spouted every curse word I know. I was a real classy lady lemme tell ya. BUT, the final result is oh so worth it and I have forgiven the door for being such a little B.
Let’s start with what the door looked like to begin with:
So, I did what any sane person would do and started scraping away at the chipped and cracked paint one morning while waiting for a repair man to come to the house. 4 hour window you say? Let’s bust out the paint scraper!
I wasn’t sure how it was going to go because I had never scraped a metal door before, but at first it was very therapeutic! I loved see the big paint chips fly off the door. Instant gratification. I also realized early on there were many layers of paint to the door…3 in fact. Once the paint stopped scraping easily (and it became more annoying than cathartic) I realized I needed to kick it up a notch and stop working so hard. I did a quick google search of non-toxic paint strippers and came up with Citristrip. Since I’m working on the door still on the hinges I really didn’t want toxic chemicals wafting through the house.
It’s low VOC, had positive reviews, and after I saw a few tutorials via pinterest of it working great on stripping paint from wood I thought lets go for it! I popped over to my local hardware store and picked up a container of it for about $10 along with a cheap paint brush for application.
Kudos to you for sticking with this project! I've done stripping/scraping projects on furniture in the past and I know how time consuming and frustrating they can be. If this were my project, I might have just thrown in the towel after a few hours and gotten a new front door!
Wow! That was rough! I don't think I would have the patience to do it. You'd think it would be good with a little primer and paint and call it a day! Oh well, now you have the experience and you can pass it on to others.
The devil is most definitely in the prep. I hate the prep… ugh. Way to go for taking on the hard work!