"I have more ideas in my head than in the closet"

Amy commented on my last post and asked me to check out her blog. She doesn't know that I already did (even before she asked) and found the quote above in her sidebar. I wish I had thought of it, because it is SO me! I always have more sewing ideas than what ends up in my closet, and more remodeling ideas than energy or time or money. So anyway, Hi Amy! Nice to meet you!

Now to answer your question, Amy … Do you think Martha really paints her own doors?? Nah! If I had hired painters, I'd have them remove the doors. But since it's only me and DH, no, you don't have to remove doors to paint them. You should tape over the hardware, though, and if you know how to put them back, completely remove the knobs. Otherwise, tape over/around them too. I wish DH had taped hinges when he primed because he did paint some of them and since he did, I had to too. Oh well. I don't think anyone will notice or care, unless I point it out. And if I ever end up with spare time, we could always remove the paint on the hardware or replace it. Yeah. That'll happen. ;-)

Many of the doors in the Money Pit were actually removed when DH spray primed them. Spraying— using one of those "pro" type sprayers not cans of spray paint — goes really fast. The problem is that it makes a MESS and uses twice the amount of paint, most of which gets disbursed into the air, landing on anything and everything nearby. When DH was spray priming, we didn't live here and none of the rooms were finished (most still aren't!) so the mess factor wasn't an issue.

Here is a pic of some of our doors being painted … in the kitchen, before it became an actual kitchen:


Now that we do live here, I really didn't want to take down doors that have been put back up, drag them and the sawhorses outside, spray, hope bugs didn't stick in the paint (we live in Florida — lots of bugs), and then probably have to run to the store for more paint. With the brush painting I've been doing, I started with a new gallon of paint and so far I've multi-coat painted all the crown and floor molding in the living room, and the 3 doors yesterday and I still have 2/3 of the gallon remaining. Brush painting is definitely more economical, even if it's also more hand work.