"Come See My Basement Door... and We'll Be Jolly Friends Forever More...."

I seem to remember some children's song that mentioned a basement door... mine has never been one to sing about....



Ever have one of those little decorating things that just irritates you but isn't something you think about until you see it? I mean, to everyone else there is nothing wrong but you see this defect (at least to you) and it drives you nuts every time you notice it?

                                                   That is my basement door.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with my basement door mind you. It's a plain white door that goes to my basement, that's all. But that is the issue. It's P-L-A-I-N. The room that it is in is one that I love because I painted it years ago to look like there are leaves falling from my ceiling on the walls.

I love this room because when the sun comes through the window, it lights up the entire room. There have actually been times when I thought I left the light on in that room only to discover it's the way the light reflects on the walls. I also love it because I created this look with just three colors of acrylic paint that I slapped on the wall in an "X" pattern and then smoothed out with another brush so there was really no expense at all other than the leaves stencil.











But the door. It just looked out of place.


This weekend I took care of that in a matter of an hour and here is what I did.

I knew I wanted something like a wreath on the door and something that said, "basement" but, well, fancy-like. So I went to Google images and found a wreath I liked. Then I went to the website, babelfish.com and typed in the word "Basement" and translated it into different languages until I found one that I liked (French). I opened a word document and typed this word using a script that I favored and then pasted the image of the wreath on it, resizing it to fit the paper. I then put the image behind the text and this is what I came up with.

 

 

I copied it on to tracking paper like I showed you on the Halloween piece we did earlier in my post called, "If You Can Color in a Coloring Book You Can Paint". Following those exact directions, I taped the image to the door and slid the graphite paper underneath to transfer my pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I transferred it, I needed to determine what colors I was going to use. I decided to go with a grey, highlighted with a bit of yellow to bring in the walls, and white as a natural highlight and shade it with charcoal.

 

 

 

First I base coated it in the grey.

 

 

 

 

 

Secondly I added the yellow. This is right by a window so I had the natural light that determined where the highlight should be.

 

Then I added the white highlight.

 

 

 

Remember to "walk out the paint by using a damp brush and a little paint on one corner. Using your "pallet" (this one is an old clean take out container) stroke the paint until it forms a gradual gradient.

 

 

 

 

 

Then added the shading and outlined it. I went a bit heavy with the outline but that's fine, I liked the end result.

 

 

 

I ended up putting the text back in after painting it because it became "smeared".
To clean it up, I just used a damp dishtowel with a bit of dishsoap. Then cleaned it off with a clean damp dishtowel.

 

Then I used the original pattern, lined it up, transferred it and did the text.

 

 

 

 

 

I have to say, I'm kind of digging the way it came out. (Not the best image of the text).

 

 

 

 

The last step is to take a pencil eraser and erase any of the lines that are still visible.

Then take a matte varnish and just go over the image that you made so that it doesn't get

damaged and you can wash the door if it gets smudged without danger of loosing your work.

 

 

 

It looks so much nicer now. I love looking into my laundry room and feeling like it is finally "DONE".