Or at least, while Wendy is away, Alex, Lulu, and Mel will play. 

With my weekend posts about running and baseball, you might be wondering, "Alex, just what exactly are you doing while Wendy is out of town? Don't you have tons of house projects to work on? Don't you have better things to be doing than hanging out and taking it easy all weekend?" One would think, wouldn't they?

Well, with Wendy out of the house, you could say we've been a little bit lazy. Let's take a look at the stuff we did over the weekend.

The weekend started off pretty solidly. Lots of sleeping in, lots of not making the bed, and lots of leaving clothes all over the place like a budding hoarder. A guy's gotta have goals.

Mel started getting sort of crazy, doing wild things like drinking orange juice right out of the carton.

No need to be clean up after ourselves or wash dishes.

And we pretty much spent the whole weekend laying around on the couch and watching preseason football and planning our fantasy season. So productive.

Any extra time was just spent napping.

Okay, I think Wendy has probably passed out from shock by now, that or she's already on the phone with a divorce lawyer and has stopped reading the post, so now I can talk about what I really got done this weekend. Those photos were staged and I don't actually live like I'm in a barn while Wendy is away.

Yes, I did do some running and went to a Nationals game on Saturday, but the rest of the weekend was very busy. I ended up working on all of the chores that needed to be taken care of while Wendy is away, and whatever other time I had I was moving the front door project along. It was a ridiculously busy weekend.

It all started on Friday with the final sanding and priming of the new front door. I hit the ground running almost as soon as I got home from work.

We're using a Benjamin Moore Alkyd primer and paint to promote as much gloss as possible with as few brush marks, so I had to prime using Alkyd primer. I actually like painting with Alkyd paint. Though it has an odor, it really doesn't bother me all that much, and I'll gladly take the odor given how easily Alkyd paint flows and how long of a work time you have with it before it gets too tacky.

As you can see from the photo, I used a 2" angled brush for the detailed intricate areas in the panels and molding, and a 6" smooth foam roller for the flat areas of the door. I started, as I do on any door, with the panels.

And before I knew it (like an hour and a half later) the door was primed.

Since this is Alkyd primer and it takes a while to dry, I had to knock off for the night and pick the work back up on the door Saturday morning.

After folding all of the laundry on the bed and then making the bed...I got back to work on the door. See, no rest for the weary. In order to have as high gloss and as smooth of a surface as possible, I had to prep the primed surface with a light sanding. I used three fine grits of sandpaper (400, 600, and 1500) and wet sanded the flat portions of the door to give a smooth and glass like surface.

I then used some '000' steel wool to get into the intricate corners of the panels. 

The primed door was sanded, and I had an adoring audience.

Then I finally did what I've been waiting to do since we bought this door nearly a year ago. After all of the hours of work, painstakingly stripping, sanding, patching, cutting, measuring, squaring, scribing, extending, drilling, trimming, and thinking about this door, I started to paint the final outdoor color for our new front door. It was an amazing feeling that I can't really describe. 

My euphoria, though an awesome feeling, was somewhat short lived as I got back into the methodical process of door painting. Every time I paint a door I basically get into the zone. I can't listen to music or have the TV on in the background, I just need to concentrate on what I'm painting. Why? Because you need to have a plan when you are painting a door. Without a plan, you'll end up with a sloppy looking door. The first step in my door plan, same as with priming, start with the panels.

Then I move onto the rails and stiles of the door. And again, about an hour and a half later (I'm a slow painter), everything had its first coat and it was looking good.

I actually have a very specific order that I followed with this door. It varies slightly based on the number of panels, but it is sort of a paint by numbers approach. The point is to ensure that brush strokes follow the grain of the wood, terminate at the start of the adjacent grain, and maintain a wet edge. The wet edge is much easier with this paint than a latex paint. Here's my paint by numbers approach.

With the door painted on Saturday, I had to give it a 24 hour dry time before sanding and the next coat, so the fun had to be resumed on Sunday. What a tedious process, but the door was starting to really look good.

On Sunday I repeated almost the exact same process of sanding as I had done with the primer. This time I wet sanded using the 600 grit and the 1500 grit paper,  and then wiped the whole door down to get any of the residue from the sanding off of the door. Once the door was fully dry from the sanding, I use the same process to paint the door, again using my 2" angled brush and foam roller on the flat surfaces.

It's starting to look good, don't you think? I've probably got one more sanding and coat of paint left before this side of the door is done. I really can't wait, because the next step is hanging the door in its permanent location. It's been a long process, but so worth it now that it is all coming together.

What do you think? Good color? Tedious process? Annoying how long it's taking but excited about the end result? Yeah, me too :-)