Hi friends! Goodness, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a house post for you hasn’t it? I have to admit that I think I was a tad ambitious thinking I’d be able to update you weekly on our renovation. I’ve mentioned this before, but things have progressed really slowly (aka they haven’t progressed at all!) over the winter months. The motivation to tackle big projects has been seriously lacking but now that spring is finally here (allegedly!) we are PSYCHED to get back on that reno-train. IN FACT we’re doing the kitchen next month, which I am SO EXCITED about so I’ll have lots more updates for you soon.
ANYWAY, I digress.
So, the pink door. Those of you that follow me on Instagram will already know that I’ve been lusting after a pink front door for as long as I remember. I hoped that once we bought our dream house that my fantasy would finally become a reality. But then we bought a red brick house and Gareth informed me that it would look shit.
Goddamnit.
I attempted mocking it up on Photoshop with as many different shades of pink as I could find but frustratingly, he was right. It just didn’t work at all.
But then saw that a few of my interior inspos had painted the inside of their front doors pink (Lisa, Elsie, Sarah – honestly, so good!) and I thought I’d found the perfect solution. I pitched it to Gareth… and I was shot down once again. GOD, someone remind me why I married such an opinionated man please?
And then it hit me. I WOULD PAINT THE INSIDE OF MY OFFICE DOOR PINK. We have a rule in our house that we can’t make any decisions on house decor/ big purchases without the other person’s agreement. After all, we both have to live here and we can have very different tastes in things (I’m right, he’s wrong but ya know…) This rule is strictly enforced EXCEPT when it comes to our offices. Those are our personal spaces and we can do whatever we like to them without the other person butting in!
So I excitedly headed off to B&Q immediately and collected approximately 15161 swatches – who knew there were so many pinks? I then taped my favourites up on the door and left them there for a few days so I could see how they worked in different lights, and see if I was more drawn to certain ones as I got used to them. In the end I settled on Dog Rose by Valspar. They actually colour match too so I was going to get an exact match to one of the prints on my wall, but in the end I liked this one so much I didn’t really need to. It’s the perfect cool toned blush pink.
I was actually pretty nervous about making the wrong decision. Our entire house (and our previous one) is painted entirely white at the moment so making choices on paint colours is not something I’m used to! But I kept reassuring myself that it was only paint and if I hated it I could always paint right over it.
I decided (actually – truth time – Gareth told me to) take the door off it’s hinges and sand it first to give as smooth a surface as possible. The doors in our house are original and have been painted a number of times with gloss paint and as I prefer the matt finish of eggshell we knew it would give a better result if we sanded it back a bit. I did this by hand with sandpaper around a block but it actually didn’t take as long as I thought it would thank goodness! Yes, we could have filled in some of the divots, but honestly they don’t really bother me. I think they just add to the patina of the old surface actually.
Three coats of Dog Rose later and the door was done! And oh my goodness, it looks even better than I thought it would! I found this brass lion hook and keyhole cover in a knob shop (lol, sorry I’m a child) that I just happened to be walking past a few weeks ago and I knew I had to have them. Doesn’t he look so great with the pink!?
I am just so thrilled with how it looks, I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner! I feel like it really ties the room together, especially with the prints on the wall and my sofa next to it – that door was just meant to be pink! I kinda want to paint the inside of all the doors in our house now but as we all know, Gareth will be having none of it.
