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Five reasons you, too, will love a keyless entry at your house.

5 – This accessory instantly makes you feel cool. For those of us who have never really been cool in life, it’s kind of a cool feeling. You cool people have had it made.

4 – The autolocking feature is my favorite thing of all time. That might be an exaggeration, but it is 100% awesome for so many reasons.

3 – Like when I walk the dogs in the evening, no more key to hold with my phone and poop bags and dog leashes, the door locks when we go and a simple keypad entry lets us back in.

2 – You can program up to 8 different codes. Dog sitter needs a code? No prob. Workers coming to the house, they can have their own code, and then when they’re done you can reprogram that code and not have to give your dog sitter a new code because they have their very own.

1 – It is pretty dang stylish for a technological thing.

I’m not sure why these things make me so happy, maybe it’s because we live so close to the street. Or in such a ‘transient’ community where there’s always a decent amount of neighborhood foot traffic walking about. And using our key to consistently lock and unlock the door when we are home is entirely too much to take on.

I seriously just love it. That I can walk up to pilates in the morning and not rush around trying to find my key to lock the door when I am already running a few minutes late.

Or maybe it’s because we’re in Key West, and oft heading out wearing shorts and t-shirts and who wants to carry a house key if they don’t have to. So maybe it wouldn’t have the same life changing appeal to you. But it was a neat feature I thought would be fun to have, and I am now madly in love.

Sorry for the late night shot, I had to proceed with the install the same day we repainted the front door and installed glass door panels so we didn’t have a hole in the door that night.

But if you’re interested here are a few specifics. You know, just so you can feel what the cool people have been feeling all along.

This is the exact keyless entry system I bought here. (affiliate link, and a few more to come) And the basic knob I bought to go with it is here.

I was kind of hung up about only having a plain knob on the front door, and not something like this, like we’re used to. But I don’t really know what I was worried about. Would it not look substantial enough? I don’t know who put it in my brain that front door hardware needed to be substantial.

I was wrong, again.

The plain knob doesn’t bother me one bit. Maybe because I hardly ever look past the keyless entry. I appreciate the simplicity of it and like that they had a square option. Much more our style than some of the other curvy options like this or the handle and deadbolt in one like this.

The installation was pretty well-instructed in the manual and it all worked out the first time around. The hardest part was attaching some stubby little screws which connect the inside panel to the part of the outside portion that comes through the door. You have to hold pressure on the screw inside the hole so it doesn’t fall out while trying to line up the inside panel with the outer part and keep the connectivity wire (that makes the whole thing function) out-of-the-way so it will screw in properly.

black arrow – wire connecting the keypad to the back panel
red arrows – the little holes for the stubby screws
white arrows – where the stubby arrows needed to screw in

It would be nice if the holes where those little screws go were designed so you can’t lose the screws out of the them, but they are not and I actually lost one screw and the first time I connected it all it looked like this from the inside. I just could not get the whole thing to sit flush with the door.

But, at random a few days later I found the screw and gave it another go. And I say that it all worked out well the first time because that kind of little gap is not the kind of thing that we worry about around here. It’s irritating at first and when we’re just completing a project we’re all like “man that totally stinks”. And then 3 days later we’re like “gap … what gap?”.

It’s not like these awesome new commercials from Lowe’s.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV-5eH2uono]

(There is a hilarious 30 second video here that unfortunately won’t play in email or a reader, you’ll need to click on the post to see it, they make me laugh out loud … maybe because we’ve all been there.)

But, back to the keyless entry and with the second screw in place we were looking much better. I actually believe it had more to do with the wire I showed you above, it really had to be wedged into just the right spot so it didn’t block the components from screwing in completely.

And my only other “oh, you’re asking for my advice on how to make this keyless entry system easier to install?” would be to make the screws that attach the cover to the panel on the inside of the door a little larger so the allen wrench they supply to attach those screws can also be a little larger.

Between this little allen wrench and my new pry bar I am acquiring quite an arsenal of tools to remodel my very own doll house.

One other finicky little thing that I still need to do is chisel out our door frame so the plate fits in the right spot where the deadbolt locks when the door is closed. See how they are out of alignment here, the plate for the deadbolt and the plate for the door knob, which is in the right spot. I’ll get to that, at some point.

But the coding instructions were clear and we were pointing and high fiving at our auto locking door (which you can activate or deactivate at anytime which is nice, say, if you’re having a party or something and want to keep the door unlocked) as soon as it was installed. And I was brainstorming how many people I wanted to make codes for. Seriously, who has 8 different sets of people you would want to have unlimited access to your abode? I hardly even like that many people in real life.

But the keyless entry system. I love.

And I’ll keep you posted on how long the batteries last. It runs on 4 AA batteries and I’m curious myself how quickly they’ll wear out.

Anyone else out there have a keyless entry? Love it as much as we do? Any insight into how long the batteries last?

Update: I should have included this originally, this post isn’t sponsored, Kwikset doesn’t know who I am, I am just seriously finding new reasons why I love this thing everyday. That moment you get to your front door with your arms filled with grocery bags only to realize you haven’t dug your key out of your bag yet. Yeah, there will be no more of that around here.

And …

The cat’s out of the bag. I painted our front door.

The color is Martha Stewart Blue Suede color matched in Behr Exterior with a satin finish.

Here’s a close-up of some of the etching detail, there are four panels with the same design.

To be totally honest, that design isn’t one I would pick out if we were shopping for a new door, but in our effort to work with and enhance as many aspects of this house as we can without just tossing them aside we’re choosing to try to resurrect this solid wood door to its glory of yesteryear.

Drop ceilings have got to go, but solid wood doors, even with etching that isn’t necessarily my style is totally workable for us. You might choose differently.

I shared all of the details about replacing the six plastic panels with beveled glass and our plan all along was that when the glass arrived we would remove the hardware and plastic panels at the same time and paint the door while she was nice and bare. I had already ordered the hardware, more on that soon because I truly believe that everyone needs a self locking door, and bought the paint so when the glass arrived we were ready to go.

As for picking the color, I’ve acquired this habit of soaking up inspiration as I’m walking around Key West. We picked the exterior paint color because it is the color of a local hotel and I’m thinking of making a sign that says “it’s a Key West thing” because that is a totally normal explanation for things in our house now.

It’s kind of a way of saying that anything goes, so I didn’t feel any pressure to fall into some sort of norm with the paint color, it was just a matter of picking something that made the house feel how we wanted it to feel to passers-by.

I wanted the color to be fun without being a joke. I wanted it to be sophisticated without being stuffy. Basically I wanted the right combination of quirk, charm and class.

Whether or not I accomplished that is definitely in the eye of the beholder but I found myself drawn to navy’s and dark blues a while back and I just couldn’t shake it.

I especially liked the look of the darker blues with a gray house. So after a quick “you’d be OK with me painting the door a dark blue, right?” to Joel, which solicited a response of “red would be fun” to which I replied “been there, done that” (here) I snagged a bunch of blue paint chips and started narrowing it down.

I immediately knew I didn’t want to go too dark because it would look black from the street.

So the one right below the door handle was eliminated. And for some reason I couldn’t see anything but purple when I stared at the one on the top.

And the multi-colored chips were just not speaking too me. I thought the darkest color on each was too dark and the one next too it just wasn’t right. So pretty quickly I had it narrowed down to two Martha Stewart colors, the one I ended up with and another called Mariner.

I was really leaning toward Mariner up close but as I walked up and down our little street checking them out from afar and all different angles the Blue Suede struck me with just a little more “color”. It’s hard to tell from this picture, but what is evident is that I haven’t made any additional progress beyond this little front porch.

So Blue Suede it was, and since it was on the darker side I opted for tinted primer as well, and the Home Depot was kind enough to tint an opened gallon of Kilz I had with less than 1/2 gallon remaining when I purchased my quart of front door paint.

The paint specialist made a point to tell me he tinted it just slightly lighter so it was easy to see the difference when I was painting over the primer so I didn’t miss any spots. I thought that was smart.

I stuck with just the angled brush for the whole door and kind of stippled into the etching and then brushed over it to smooth it out. The drips from previous coats reminded me not to use too much paint around those areas.

The whole process of stippling into each section afforded just enough time for paint to dry and I could go back and cover up any random streaks so I didn’t actually have to go back to do a complete second coat of either primer or paint.

I would stipple one etched section, then smooth out the paint, brush in the direction of the wood over a few of the flat sections, and then the light coat of paint over the etching was dry enough to go back and stipple more where needed, smoothing out along the way. Then continuing in the direction of the flat wood grain sections, paint a few flat panels and move onto the next etched section. The entire process went pretty smoothly from the top to the bottom of the door.

I’m really happy with how it turned out, we have never had a blue front door so I’m happy to have something new, and since I was thinking of going ORB for the hardware finish I’m glad the Blue Suede is not so dark that it all blends together. All of the dark blue doors I had seen had brushed nickel finishes so I was just crossing my fingers the whole look would come together.

I’m thinking the door is the fun and the hardware is the class and hopefully I can get my act together to get the random church pew/rocking chair stack in order soon so the entire front porch can get into the fun yet classy act.

As for my Key West front doors of inspiration, I was really leaning in the aqua direction for quite a while.

I might just be in love with the bud vase on this one.

And then I saw this little intro to the navy world with aqua siding and an awesome palm tree knocker.

I think the white and navy combination is just really classic. And I might just trample someone if I ever find that light in real life

This house was just recently remodeled and proved that the navy/orb combo had a chance.

I was always somewhat considering trying my hand at stripping the front door because I do think a natural looking door is an eye-catcher. But the idea of stripping around all of the etching drove me to ~~drink~~ paint.

And I walk by this house pretty regularly and after a few times it made me realize I didn’t have to give up the aqua idea all together. Bringing in those “funner” pops of color in accessories could fulfill the desire without having to commit to actually using it on the house. The spray cans of paint on the table appear to be proof that I caught a pretty recent little table makeover and I’m loving the combinations of blues.

And if all you want is fun, there is always this color combination, which I actually love, just not for our house right now.

But it definitely makes me smile.

So tell me, how did you choose your front door paint color? Did you go for fun or classic or a combination? I’ll admit, after I had the door all nice and clean I briefly considered sticking with white, white is a color, right?

And, if you’re looking for more you can see how we updated the door with glass panels, how we updated the porch with new siding and how I learned how to use a paint sprayer with a little help from my friends.

our new keyless entry and why I love it so

front door colors and using Key West front doors for inspiration