Shut the front door!

The Rosedale has an awesome front door. In fact, along with the stairs, the door is probably my favorite part of this house. Its trim is made up of several separate pieces layered on top of each other, so unlike a Houseworks door, it’s super easy to use multiple paint colors without making a big mess.

I’m using Glidden’s Sandy Feet and Antique Purple (same colors I used for the window trim and shutters, respectively), along with a dark blue named Blue Gray Slate. Below you can see which pieces are painted which colors (along with the huge pile of brackets on deck to be painted…)

As I was painting these, I realized the top of the door has some trim I’d neglected to punch out. (That’s what happens when you don’t follow the instructions!) These are referred to as the “door stoop” pieces, and they sandwich the piece that sticks out of the house. Had I realized this sooner, I wouldn’t have done such a careful job painting the top of the part that sticks out of the house!

As I first looked at this, I was tempted to repaint the middle piece purple, with the top and bottom pieces white. But I didn’t use purple in the bay windows—one of which is right next to the door—and I wanted to stay somewhat consistent. Instead, I decided to paint the bottom piece of the door stoop white, so the bottom and middle pieces would mimic the all-white tops of the bays, and paint the top piece purple to correspond to the purple tops of the windows.

The door trim was a little warped, so I put paint cans on top to keep it flat while it dried.

Here are the first two trim layers glued in, as well as the bottom piece of the door stoop. The innermost white part is the house, followed by a purple trim piece, then a white trim piece. Maybe I should have painted the inside of the transom window purple?

And here it is with the rest of the trim pieces glued in.

Next came the door itself. The kit windows have silk screening on them, and I thought this looked too busy so I made my own window out of some extra plastic from the edge of the window sheet. (You can also buy blank window sheets at a model or miniature store.)

I’m not sure yet if I’ll use the silk screened windows for the rest of the house. This front door window is the only one I’ve glued in so far, and I’m going to have to be really careful not to mess it up during the rest of the build. I generally glue in the windows from the inside, as one of the last steps.

When I was getting ready to paint the trim pieces, I sanded a little too vigorously and this piece snapped in half. (Luckily, since I’m bashing two kits together, I had a spare!)

Rather than tossing it, I’m thinking it might work as a room divider between the kitchen and eating area. I could add a piece of strip wood between the two pieces to create a doorway, which would have the added benefit of distracting from the not-quite-level ceiling.

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