Things are really moving along with the kitchen now!  Once the counters were installed, it was off to the races on getting the details finished.  So, we’re a little behind in real-time with my blog posts, but I want to make sure I take the time to share each piece of the renovation.  It doesn’t sound like a glamorous topic worthy of its own blog post, but I want to share about the basement door.  When you see how pretty it is, you might agree it’s worthy of the feature.

So, let me remind you what the basement door looked like pre-renovation…

Oh man, it’s hard to believe that was our kitchen.  It’s changed so much!  Except for the exterior doors, all of the doors in our house are hollow-core slab doors.  I am thankful that the exterior doors are solid wood, paneled, and traditional in style.  They are perfect.  But, the interior doors really miss the mark when it comes to adding architectural interest.  A flat slab just doesn’t do that.  Eventually, I’d like to replace all of the doors (some of them stick and the layers are even starting to pull apart at the corners), so while we’re replacing the basement door anyway, let’s replace it with something I like.

I selected a four-panel solid pine door.  It just felt like the right choice.  It’s a door style that is a bit old-fashioned yet it doesn’t feel like a departure from the style of the home.  When I make design decisions, especially ones that are a permanent fixture of the home, I try to make decisions that complement the architecture of my house as well as my aesthetic.

I primed the door in primer tinted to match Card Room Green (Farrow & Ball), in order to seal the wood.  I will say I was tempted to try to stain it, but it is adjacent to the dining room doors and those need to be painted, so it made sense to keep it simple and paint it.

I still need to put a second coat and new hardware on the dining room doors, but here is how the basement door looks (without the trim)…

I ended up applying two coats of paint in a modern eggshell finish (so it has a light sheen to it) and sanded lightly between each coat to keep it nice and smooth.  I applied the paint just with a brush (instead of a roller) so it has that traditional brushstroke texture and doesn’t have any roller marks or dimples.

And, I topped it all off with a simple unlacquered brass knob, the same as the ones I used in my studio.  are the knobs.  I got for the dining room doors.

They actually added the trim around the doors on Friday day, but it still needs to be caulked and painted.  We need to call in the painting crew (me) again!

I also wanted to let you know that my next original art sale, featuring the Spring Sky Challenge paintings, will be Friday, June 2, at noon EST.  I will post a full preview with all of the details, but I will have over 30 original landscape paintings in that sale.  Here is a sampling…