Girl in Pink: Door Decor...Creating Patina Where There Was None

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Door Decor...Creating Patina Where There Was None

Hello! I am excited to show you what I've been working on this week! It seems like it takes me forever to finish a project these days. I really haven't had any extended periods of time to work on anything...so, it's just a little here and a little there, in between fixing meals, doing laundry and running kiddos around. It sure feels good to have something completed and ready to share today!

I have had the idea for this weathered looking pink and grey door flitting about in my head for literally months now!

Last winter I painted this pink door for the shop. I purchased a few of the skinny doors, once bi-folding, removed from a home where some remodeling was being done. If I had more storage space, I would have bought all of them (there were at least 30 for sale!) Boy, sometimes I wish I wasn't so practical! Doors are such fun to paint and these are a really nice size to use as a decorative, architectural element for any room.

As with any piece that I set out to paint, creating patina where it may not have existed originally, it helps to first develop a story for it!

I imagined an old building in Paris with many oddly shaped doors opening out onto an alley way. Maybe they were offices and studios. This one led to an aspiring fashion designer's tiny little studio. She proudly painted the little door to her first studio pink and very carefully painted her address near the top; 35 Rue du Pontel, Paris.

Years passed and the aspiring fashion designer became successful and moved on to a larger studio in a fancy modern building, leaving her little pink door behind. A young photographer moved in and repainted the door a dark grey. People and businesses came and went, and nearly one hundred years after the door received that first coat of pink paint, the building underwent reconstruction and the little door was removed. It sat in a salvage yard, collecting dirt. The pretty pink showed through in spots and even a bit of the original wood grain. What stories this door might tell! And now, retired from it's position as a useful door, it has graduated to a piece of art to grace the corner of a beautifully decorated room.

Making up the story about a piece is sometimes almost as much fun as painting it! The true story of how the skinny pink and grey door with loads of patina and charm came to be is here...

1. One coat of Antoinette, Chalk Paint® Decorative Paint by Annie Sloan

2. Address painted on in Graphite, Chalk Paint®

3. Artisan Enhancements Crackle Tex medium applied in spots to create texture where the second layer of paint would be pulled away to reveal the pink underneath.

4. French Linen and Pure White Chalk Paint® painted on simultaneously, working in sections, pulling away while still wet with a paper napkin, sometimes wiping with a baby wipe.

5. After allowing everything to dry completely, I used my wax brushes to apply Annie Sloan's clear and dark waxes.

6. I added the cool door plate, found at an antique show. Luckily I had 2 old rusty screws in the garage! I painted where the knob would have gone and inside the key hole with Graphite, followed by dark wax. I also added more dark wax around the door plate to make it look as though it had always been there.

If you're thinking of adding patina to a door, check out some authentically old doors on my Pinterest board Incredible Doors, for inspiration!