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:

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):

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:

(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?