door to morocco
some homeowners choose to paint their front door a singular bright and bold color. but not the dearies! while we've enjoyed our classic white period entry, i had ambitious plans to transform ours into a decorative moroccan-inspired pattern. after mulling for weeks, i settled on the following inspiration board from my favorite images gleaned from pinterest:
i just adore the look of the intricately carved doors and their elaborate painted finished, especially those with sparkling metallic accents! while each image served as a muse, this image helped set the tone for what would become the finished product:
happily, our period 1910 homes interior has evolved into a bit of a bohemian-bollywood cottage! the front room showcases a gorgeous marrakesh fireplace screen, recently complemented by a 1920’s vintage brass fireplace tool kit scored from ebay. curtains, pillows and furniture slip covers are swapped out in spring/summer and fall/winter, with the later evoking an exotic jewel box featuring lush brocades, suede and velvet in a palate of magenta, purple, orange, red, turquoise, chocolate brown and gold. whimsical details abound from our collection of day of the dead figurines to large framed hatch prints and a bronze crown chandelier!
i determined there were nine primary colors necessary to reproduce the effect within my inspiration image. fortunately, most were already in use as paint colors within our home including tamarind, deep turquoise, salmon pink, geranium red, lavender and royal purple. the most obvious choice for the base color for the door was a salmon pink i’d used in the dearie daughters room and was also on our bedroom ceiling. i adore how it goes with everything in general and knew it would look stunning against the gunmetal grey of our exterior house paint and its mustard-gold trim. meanwhile, i got to work painting the front door and almost immediately started getting mixed reviews on my door color choice from the rest of the dearie clan! i wisely ignored these naysayers and told them to save any critiques until it was all finished...
my soon-to-be epic door entry needed architectural details. fortunately, layered arabesque and rectangular wooden ornaments i’d found at the craft store had strong potential. i soon discovered, if i alternated the two ornamental shapes, 9 ornaments per each of the four door insets, it set a very attractive moroccan pattern. unfortunately, i needed 18 of each style and there was very limited inventory in my local stores. after driving around and across town to buy up what i could, i got the remaining quantity required ordered online.
while waiting for the bulk of my door decorations to arrive in the post, i sat down and determined the best pattern for the color alternation so any one particular color didn’t end up directly next to another:
to provide unity i painted the outer layer of each ornament with my leftover “tamarind” paint, the same spiced neutral color used on the living room walls. i also, just for curiosities sake, experimented with embossing one of the ornaments using bronze embossing powder leftover from our wedding invitations 13 years earlier. i was thrilled with the effect! after painting the centers of each group of ornaments, i hand painted the edges and outlined each with aged bronze metallic paint using a fine point paint brush. the last call to business was embossing each ornament with its respective design (two separate designs were used). i did this over 36 times!
when all the ornaments were painted, trimmed and embossed, i laid them out and gave them the once over. everything looked gorgeous but i felt as though the rectangular ornaments were missing something. finding my jar of colored jewels in my studio, i laid a complimentary color upon each one to see the effect: perfect! each jewel was carefully glued down and left to cure for 24 hours.
using a clear, fast drying, super hold gel glue, i carefully affixed each completed ornament into its proper position starting at the top, then bottom, and alternating back and forth working towards the center of each of my four rows. spacing was tricky, especially with each ornament not being identical in shape and size. however, i believe this gives a lovely old-world appeal and adds to the overall character of the finished door entry.
finally completed: epic and magnificent!
i’m so excited with how it turned out! also, i'm happy to report those family naysayers on the original door color have had a change of heart now that they’ve seen the final results. see, patience (and trust!) pays off! the door looks especially stunning in the sunlight with the sparkling of the jewels and the metallic bronze accent paint. this was a true labor of love and turned out even better than i expected…what do you think?!
p.s.: dearies, i must share with you this funny anecdote: my mum came round right after the doors' completion to see our oldest daughters new haircut. however, mum was so distracted and mesmerized by our beautiful new doorway, she left, completely forgetting the reason for her visit!