Wednesday 5 February 2014

Front door DIY refurbishment

My beloved husband is going on stag do this weekend and that means I will do again some big DIY (I can get house really messy and then put it back together before my husband returns. Last time I have revamped our front door.
They are original 1880 Victorian hardwood doors and they showed it. They are a little bit wonky at the bottom and sometime ago had a problem with woodworm. Original oak threshold was quite damaged by them.
It took me full three days to sand them down, repair what I could and repaint them + put all new fittings in.

 

































Unfortunately I didn't make any"during" photos. So this was our front door before "stag do"



The fake brass fitting was "rusty and door had really bad paint job. 




 The woodworm holes where everywhere.


At the bottom of the frame there was chunk of wood missing. Probably from pram wheel.

First I have took all of the fittings and draught excluders off.
Than I have sanded and sanded door and frame. Discovered that door have been originally just wooden then black then yellow then green then blue and then this dark green.

Only thing I didn't check is if some of my sanded paint had a lead in it. I unfortunately didn't wear any mask on.
In one point passing neighbour was looking at me funnily and later I have discovered that I had this green dust on me and I have looked like a frog! :-)

So after sanding I have filled all the holes with wood filler. Then applied primer. I have used Farrow & Ball waters based exterior wood & metal paint. It is nice to work with it. It dries quicker then oil based paint but it needs more coats.
After three days I have put all together + repainted back of the door with ordinary white eggshell oil based paint because door looked like this:


I have changed most of the fittings on inside of the door too. Added new bolts as we didn't have a key for the old ones.

So our door looks like this now! I have also repainted the walls with white masonry paint and we changed light too. There was hanging bulb! I have stained threshold with dark oak stain.
Farrow & Ball paint is called "Oval Room blue". In different light it changes from light grey/ blue to almost turquoise and I love it.



We have kept our old lion. We just polished it off. It looks quite good even if it is not in great condition.

When my husband returned from his stag do. House was nice and tidy (no spec of green dust anywhere) and front door was almost finished ( I needed his help to put lock in & nail new draught excluders in).

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