Quick Fix: Made-to-Match Mail Slot

June 24, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 24 Comments

Do you remember how funky our front door looked when we bought it?  Let me refresh your memory:

before - our front door

Hideous, right?

Well, after we spruced it up and stained it and made it look a little less prison-like, we added some snazzy new hardware to our refurbished front door:

our refinished and restained front door

I love the black satin finish of the entry hardware – doesn’t it look rich against the stained door?

When we ordered the hardware for the front door, we were able to pick one finish for the exterior and another finish for the interior – pretty snazzy!  That way, the door hardware on the interior could match the satin nickel finish that we have on all of the rest of the door levers throughout the house:

our mailbox slot

We also picked out a new black mail slot for the front door – unfortunately, we couldn’t pick a different finish for the interior, so we’ve been stuck with this mismatched look in our entryway for the past six months.

our mailbox slot

After staring at this unsightly sight month after month, I finally decided to take action.  I marched into Home Depot and marched out with two cans of magic that were destined to transform our mismatched mail slot into something a little more coordinated.  Something a little like this:

mailbox slot

Here’s how it all went down:

1.  Buy some magic in a can.  A full arsenal of spray paint is a must-have for any DIY-er.  In this case, I added a metal primer and a brushed metal spray paint to my collection:

spray paint primer for metal brushed metal spray paint

The primer wasn’t absolutely necessary since our mail slot doesn’t get a lot of use (or any, actually – we have a mailbox, too), but I decided that a little extra sticking power never hurt anyone.

2.  Take it all off.  Armed with my handy Phillips-head screwdriver, I tackled the four tiny screws that were holding the interior side of our mail slot into place.  The result was none too pretty:

our mailbox slot

3.  Make a work station.  Newspapers, drop cloths, whatever you have on hand makes the perfect work station for a spray painting party.  I happened to have a random cardboard box lying around so I stuck the screws into the cardboard so that they would stand up and propped open the mail slot with a little stick.  MacGuyver would have been proud:

painting our mailbox slot

4.  Get into prime form.  If you thought this project was easy so far, get ready for this step – it’s about to get even easier.  Whip out your can of primer spray paint and spray thin coats of primer all over the mail slot (and screws) in thin, quick bursts.  I took a little practice shot on the cardboard just to get in fighting form.

priming mailbox slot

5.  Give your trigger finger a workout.  After you’ve let the primer dry (30 minutes or so should do the trick), it’s time for the star of the show – the brushed metal spray paint.  I don’t know of a spray paint that matches satin nickel hardware exactly – that brown undertone is hard to match.  Maybe a coat of brown underneath the brushed metal paint would do the trick?  If anyone knows, chime in and let us all know!

Anyway, after a few passes with my brushed metal spray paint the mail slot looked like this:

spray painting mailbox slot

Not too shabby!!

6.  Screw it up.  Give the schmancy new mail slot some time to dry, then screw it back up and admire.  Let’s take another look at that now-matching mail slot:

mailbox slot

This was hands-down the easiest project I’ve ever done.  And talk about (virtually) instant gratification!!  Excluding dry time, this project took about 5 minutes.  It doesn’t get much better than that!!

Are you a sucker for spray paint?  Fill us in on your favorite project that you tackled with a can of spray paint!

This post is shared with Tales from Bloggeritaville, Blue Cricket Design, The Thrifty Home, We Are THAT Family, and Domestically Speaking.

Flashback: From Painted and Dated to Refinished and Refined

March 4, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 2 Comments

When we first bought our house, our front door was nothing short of frightening.  Friends and family that weren’t put off by the huge iron bars were scared by the peach and mauve color scheme:
P1020820_2

We assured them that we had no intention to leave the door the way it was – but we had no idea what we were actually going to do with it.  Replacing the door wasn’t an option, as we quickly learned that a replacement door and sidelites can run in the thousands of dollars.  Then we noticed that the other side of the door, the side that we could see from our entryway, was actually quite pretty (if you could look past all the glistening finishes to actually see the door):

10887142_01

So, finally we had a plan – the front door would be refinished and restored to its pre-painted glory.  A few days later, after the door was scraped within an inch of its life, it was stained to match our new wood floors – or so we thought!!  Turns out that the door was made out of a different type of wood than our floors, so the door took the stain much differently than our floors did.  Moral of the story – always test out the stain before you apply it!!  Luckily, we’re pretty happy with the finished product:
p1030340

(The lighter part at the bottom of the door is actually just glare – the door is really all the same color).

Deciding to refinish our existing door instead of replacing it saved us thousands of dollars, and we think the end result is awesome – warm and inviting instead of a scary mix of paint and metal.  What parts of your home did you revamp instead of replace to save some bucks?

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