I have had it. I throw in the towel. I give up. It has become the bane of my existence. A constant source of misery. I acknowledge that someone out there does not want our front door to be welcoming and the entry into a portal of serenity and loveliness. Never mind the cat hairs.
Did you ever have a project that just went awry? If you remember a while back I wrote about my front door. The post entitled My Front Door May Be A Teenager described the sad story of our front door. Somewhere along the way it developed zits. Not just little pinhead sized zits but full blown gross looking infected zits.
We had a lot of theories as to why the zits appeared. We had “expert” opinions and advice and what most folks determined was that the wrong kind of paint was used on the door. When we bought the house the door was painted black on the outside as the sun had apparently faded the stain on the fiberglass door. The inside looks great. But the outside – not so great.
We had the house painted after we had lived here a year or so and changed the color of the front door to match the columns and the garage door. Good move. Or so we thought. Over the years the door started bubbling up with zits. To the point that it was ridiculous.
Last year we painted the house ourselves. It really was not that big of a deal other than the incident where my thumb met with the ladder (still recovering from that). The painting went well and the door looked great as you can see in the picture below.
This year something strange happened. The zits reappeared. In a big way. It was ridiculous and an embarrassment. How on earth can we sell a house with an acne pocked front door? So we hired a painter who sanded the entire door, primed it with the highest quality paint and then painted it.
From a distance it does not look too bad. Never mind the sun shining on the bottom of the door. Less than perfect photography on the blog today. My apologies.
But up close it is not as pretty.
Sigh.
The For Sale signs went up in the yard today and since the potential buyer makes a decision on whether this house will be worth looking at in the first 5-10 seconds it is important to make that front area look amazing. So with a less than stellar door we have opted to head that off and offer a “door allowance” so that the new owner can choose their own. Brilliant, don’t you think?That way they can get exactly what they want to get and not one that we pick out for them. ( To see the listing you can click here.)
We are ready to move on from this chapter in our lives to the next chapter. It is going to be amazing. I refuse to allow the teenaged door to get in my way. Have you ever had a project that you thought was going to go according to plan that just did not go quite as expected? Feel free to vent in the comments section and remember that all comments this month go to support Mercy Foundation Birth Center.
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Leave a commentIn our old house, we had a big living room that we tried to repaint. We thought it would be so pretty (back in early 2000s) to paint in burgundy. It took days and several coats of primer and burgundy paint to get it to where we couldn’t see the white walls through the paint.
A few years later when I got sick of the dark colors, we wanted to switch to a dark beige. Again, several days, several coats of primer and several coats of paint and we still could see a pinkish tint to the walls. I was so glad to move out of that house.
OH man—I feel your pain. Even if no one else could see the pinkish tint YOU did and I bet it drove you nuts. I totally get it. I hate projects like that. Thanks for the commiserating!
Your door looks great in photographs! I wonder what’s wrong with it and why you can sand it out? If I bought your house, I’d just leave it.
It looks good from the road……that is about all I can say.
So, did it bubble again? I like the color.
She was there working on it again this week while I was gone so we will see if she knocked the bubbles out for good. I am not very hopeful.
Maybe the house wants a wood door! I loved your picture where you painted the door brown.. looked great and this color is very pretty too.
Well it has been evolving for years. The brown looked great until it bubbled up again. Red is what all the realtors want for your door these days and it looks great from the road. 🙂
Oh, and none of our projects go as expected.. 🙂
Glad to hear we are not alone. The best laid plans….
I think you hit the nail on the head…door allowance!! Let the new owner deal with it!
Yep! This week the painter has come back and is trying to make it better but I don’t hold out much hope. I think it just needs to be totally replaced but it means the entire unit with the side lights and I don’t want to deal with it so door allowance it is!
Every single project we’ve ever undertaken, and we have redone our entire house, has not gone as planned. There are always surprises. Always. Unexpected work and costs, especially in an aged house like ours.
The worst was this past fall when the husband sawed through the basement floor so he could install a drainage pipe. Despite closing heat vents, hanging plastic and other precautions, cement dust infiltrated the entire house. I cleaned every square inch of everything, a process that took several weeks. Even sheetrock dust is not as bad as cement dust.
I hope you sell your house soon. Not that I want you to move from the Midwest. But you need to be with Chris and in the South, the place of your heart.
I have followed along on your basement reno and it has been a nightmare from what you have said. Hopefully the end is in sight!
As one who has basically completely redone two whole houses…yes, something always goes wrong or doesn’t go as planned! I think your solution is just perfect! (Currently my bathroom floor is my headache as its being redone…expensively, I might add…and I feel like the contractor isn’t really listening to what I’m saying. I’m not home today so a note has been left for him to call me before he begins any works…we’ll hope that I can communicate what I want effectively and that he hears me clearly!) 🙂
Invest in a new door…. It will probably be less costly in the long run..
The original door (in its natural state) may have been water saturated or exposed to some type of oil.. Just a question for you do the “zits” begin to appear in warmer weather? If so it may be a water problem. I’m just guessing here, as I am not a painter or handyman. Best of luck.
How frustrating. I wonder if it’s the heat or humidity there? I don’t know. I hope all goes well with the sale of your home!
Prevent door zits by no longer feeding it greasy potato chips.
Oh that is a great idea! I will cut back on those right away! And the chocolate, right?
What can I say? I just hope your house sells veriy soon.
Maybe the outside is jealous of all the fun we have inside?
for us, it’s the tile in our upstairs bathroom. it didn’t look too bad at first, but then tiles started cracking and coming loose. since there was an extra box of the tiles left in the garage, we would just replace the offending tile. but it kept happening; with older tiles AND with new tiles. finally after 3 tiles cracked one day and then the grout started coming out; hubby lifted up the air vent so he could get a good look at the sub flooring. Ahhhh. mystery solved. no sub flooring. former owners just glued these tiles over top of an old linoleum flooring. SMH.
so now we have to completely redo the whole floor — which also means taking out the long vanity since the tiles extend under. of course. oye.
That’s a great marketing strategy, I’d say.
We shall see. Fingers crossed!
I think offering a “door allowance” is a great idea! It allows the new owner to pick the door they want & heads off the people who will pick apart the zit door.
Guess what? It worked! We have an offer!!!! And a contract!!!