How NOT to paint your front door yellow.

I love driving through the historic neighborhoods of High Point, Greensboro, and Winston Salem. Teeny bungalows and cottages, gigantic mansions, classic colonials... I want to live in ALL the houses. 

Josh used to live on the edge of Sunset Hills in Greensboro, so I became very familiar with some of those houses. One house in particular caught my eye every time I drove by it. 

Disclaimer: I found this image on Google Street View. I'm not some creeper that goes around taking pictures of people's houses!

Anyway. This house. AH-MAZ-ING. I love everything about it, from the angular architecture to the pale grey exterior... and that DOOR. That YELLOW door. Perfection. 

So when Josh and I got our own little house, painting our front door yellow was on the tippy-top of my to-do list. We finally got around to it (and the shutters) last weekend. 

I've been very successful in the past with spray painting projects, and I figured that spray paint would be a quick and easy way to update the blue door. Rust-Oleum is my go to.

After removing the door, we laid down a plastic dropcloth and positioned the door atop my painting cones. GET SOME. THEY ARE A HUGE HELP. Josh taped the edges to keep from getting gold on the interior and sides. 

Once we had everything set up we each grabbed a can and let loose the hounds of Valspar. 

The outcome left much to be desired. 

Despite the claims of "paint and primer in one", and multiple coats of paint, the gold on blue combo created a sickly green hue. I was not amused. 

So we scrapped the spray paint idea and I ventured back out to Lowe's for exterior paint to cover the door and the shutters, which is what I should have done in the first place. 

We needed six full coats to finally cover the blue. Fortunately, the spray paint acted as a primer.

The shutters only required two coats, and a few touch-ups.

This project ended up being way more complicated than it needed to be. Next time I'll use an actual primer. But at least I have my yellow door, and our house looks refreshed. Success!