DIY front door makeover

We finally did it: we gave our front door a makeover.

Years ago we painted it green, which was a big improvement all on its own. Our house is quite a bland and boring color (#beigemoms would love it), so painting the doors a bright color makes all the difference. But for some reason we never actually did it until a handful of years ago.

We enjoyed our green era, but the color was never quite right, so this spring we sat down and went through some paint chips and decided on what era we’d be entering into next.

of course I stuck with my classic floral design, which I’ve painted on so many other projects (like skulls, portraits, and mirrors) 🌸

Ultimately, we unanimously decided on Briny (Sherwin Williams SW 6775).

A perfect shade of briny blue that would not only give us beachy vibes (always goals), but would also make the flowers that I was planning to paint on it really pop.

We buy our paint from Ecos Paints, which is the most eco-friendly option we know of, and is therefore quite expensive, so my color palette for this project was super limited.

I worked with *Lavender Moon (Valspar 4001-9A), Summer Wish (Valspar 3005-2B), Great Green (Sherwin Williams SW 6430), and a plain white; but I was able to mix colors to get the different shades that I needed to give my flowers and leaves some dimension.

_{*also the color of my bedroom walls!}

Here’s the thing, I really didn’t want to get overwhelmed with this project, so I buckled down and got it done in one day.

Which was a mistake.

A gigantic mistake.

I cannot stress how big of a mistake this was.

_{(my summer has not been the same since)}

Lemme first say: the project turned out beautifully, and I couldn’t be more pleased with it.

But, crouching over it all day ended up severely injuring/spraining/tearing some muscles in my lower back and sides (my educated guess is the psoas muscle…and everything surrounding it), and two months later, I’m still recovering.

I’m 28, which, I believe, is still considered quite young, and so most injuries for me are more of “walk it off” type injuries. I’m in pain for a few days, or a week, and then I get back to life and it heals up good as new.

So honestly, at first, I just tried to go about my life normally and expected the soreness to ebb.

But instead of improving, the everyday movements just made it worse, and something as simple as tripping over a milkweed stalk would send a jolt of such horrible pain through my body that I couldn’t sleep that night (I’m convinced that I tore a ligament).

I walked around holding my lower back, couldn’t sit anywhere without being fully propped up with pillows, and things like power yoga and crouching down to look for monarch eggs felt painfully impossible.

I’ll admit, looking back on the footage of this project, I can tell why I ended up in pain, I just never would’ve expected it to last this long

So I finally had to accept that I had to be much more mindful of the way I move for the foreseeable future (thankfully I was able to find some yoga poses and stretches that really helped relieve some of the tension, because things were looking rough for a while).

I don’t know why the injury was so bad, because I often crouch on the floor for a lot of my projects (I have since stopped this altogether, and now cut fabric on the kitchen table), but I think the hours upon hours of crouching down, leaning over, balancing my weight, getting up, and repeating, was simply too much.

And it didn’t help that at the worst of it, I also had a pet-sitting job that required me to go over 4x a day to take care of multiple cats and dogs.

Driving is known for being terrible for your psoas muscles, and although the drive to their house was only about 5 minutes long (stacking up to about 40 minutes a day in the car), I felt it.

I was getting in and out of the car like I was 150 years old, and it most definitely stunted the healing process. The week was long and painful, but ya girl had a job to do!

Unfortunately since I’ve been overcompensating with other body parts to get around, everything has ended up getting its time in the spotlight. It feels as though every muscle and joint in my body has gotten its turn to be sore, stressed, and overused.

me looking very pleased with myself, not knowing the horrors that awaited me

But I’m happy to report that the physical improvements are finally showing — two months after this project ended.

I’m still not moving normally, and I’m still doing my best to stay out of the car (even short car rides require being carefully propped up with a pillow), but I’m also not limping around as much anymore, and, ya know, I’m able to do mundane tasks. Like make my bed. Today I even got back outside to do more deadhedge building (and only hurt myself once!).

Everything still feels precarious, and I’m conscious of every movement I make (deathly afraid that I will accidently reinjure what is trying so hard to heal!), but I may just see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I was surprised by how few inspiration photos I could find for painted doors on Pinterest, so hopefully this will now be one

So the thing is, I do absolutely plan on painting our other two or three doors (I already have plans for the designs!!!), but I don’t have a set timeframe for this project.

I’ve learned the hard way that my body is not as forgiving as it used to be.

Sigh.

I don’t regret this project, but I am kicking myself for crippling myself for this entire summer (it’s truly unbelievable).

Maybe next summer I’ll be able to do a forward fold again.

C’est la vie.