{Pizz-zz} Back Door

Remember when I added a little Pizz–azz to my kitchen cabinets? Well, I have this sad, pitiful back door that was begging for some spunk as well.

The door leads in to a small bathroom, and out to the patio and pool. And since it’s not visible from the street, I felt like I could have some fun with it! For whatever crackhead reason, the builder made this door unusually skinny, and with no interest.

And you see my highly scientific method of choosing paint colors. I grab a bunch of samples, tape them up, examine from different angles, then take down the iffy ones until I’m left with the winner. (I’ve had 22 shades of gray taped to my guest room wall for 3 months. If anyone has the perfect gray, please let me know!) In this case, I wanted the door to look like the color of the pool, so the choosing took about 10 minutes.

But before painting, I wanted to make the door more visually interesting. My genius aunt suggested making it look like a weathered, Old Mexico style door. But unfortunately, it’s solid metal, so I wasn’t going to be able to actually distress it. So I got the spackle and putty knife out and went to town.

I used pink spackle so I could see where it was going (it dries white). I was really messy about it so it would have rough texture.

It became quite addicting, and I had a hard time knowing when to stop. Fortunately, Mr. Sugarplum was home and able to intercede on the door’s behalf.

I gave it a few days to fully dry and knocked off any grossly protruding chunks. The winning paint color was Aegean Blue, by Martha Stewart for Home Depot. But sorry Martha, I didn’t actually buy your paint. I had HD color match with their Behr outdoor flat latex. Using a 5″ cheapie bristle brush, I messily blobbed dabbed the paint on the door, getting it all the grooves of the plaster. Then using some leftover navy blue paint, I added a bit of that in places to give it layers and more dimension.

Ok, that sounds like I was all methodical about it…but really I was just winging it to see what I liked. This just looked dirty, so I covered most of the dark with the Aegean Blue.

Here’s a better shot of the final texture:

I  like the little bit of navy showing through…I can pretend I found this old door in San Miguel and it had years and years of layered paint. We also added that rusted old knocker we found on our Spring Break trip to Glenrose, Texas. It’s a little low for my taste, but since my sweet man drilled into metal for it, I’ll smile and say, “Thank you!”

It’s certainly better than just a plain, no character door. And it’s fun to see from different places in the house.

And adds good color outside:

It was a super easy project…and the best part was I didn’t have to be precise and careful…since rustic was what I was going for! What do you think?