Screen Painting

Part of my pantry project was making a new screen door. I employed several different techniques to make this door unique.

First, Mr Farmer built a fantastic screen door for me. From scratch. And he's never made one before. I want to take a moment and tell you how wonderful my husband is. He is caring, hard-working, and very talented, among so many other good attributes. Some days I wonder what I did to deserve him. (Other days, I wonder what I did to deserve him. But in a totally different way!) Today is one of those first days. I am amazed at how much he can do. Not only did he take my door design and make it. Not only did he build my pantry. BUT! He also helped me arrange the food stuffs inside so it looked good. I love this man!

Here we were fitting the door, so it's unfinished.

Once the construction on the door was done, I began the finishing process. I painted both sides of the door a single coat of dark red. Then, I took a palm sander and sanded it so some of the wood showed again.

I made sure to sand some area more than others. The next step was to stain the entire thing. This darkens the sanded parts to "age" them a bit.

 There are additional steps to antique things, but I liked the look at this point, so I quit at this step.

The next step was something I wanted to try, had never seen before, and had no idea if it would turn out. We installed the screen. Then, I took a full-sheet, clipart print out of a rooster. I fixed it under the screen. I then took a light tan paint and traced the image in paint and filled it in on the screen. I had tried several colors on a scrap piece of screen and decided the tan was the best color as I didn't want the image to be too obvious.

After letting it dry, we took it inside and hung it. Finally, we put a handle on it. I had an antique spoon that I was doing nothing with, so we used that. It could not be more perfect!

And here is the finished door.

What do you think? Did I do the inspiration photo justice? This project took two days, not counting the trip to Menards to purchase the materials. I LOVE the way it turned out!