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This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Elmer’s ProBond Advanced for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

We’re ticking away at Operation Curb Appeal and bam.

Last you saw that door had a lot of dust and chipping paint on the door and hinges … and there were silver color screws in our porch light because I lost the ones that go with the fixture. And don’t forget the hot mess of a shiny brass deadbolt and aged brass front door handle.

At least you couldn’t tell from the picture that on our front door lived 6 plastic panel inserts that were painted white on the outside. They were actually a lovely green (and taped) on the inside.

And I know I’m supposed to be finishing up the beadboard on the ceiling, but my I’ve-been-installing-caulking-and-painting-things-above-my-head-far-too-often-these-days shoulders needed a little change of pace.

So I took a break to hang out with Stephen King. Whaaaat!?!?!

For a girl from Maine, where he is also from, it was pretty darn cool. Even though I would never read any of his books for fear I could never ever close my eyes again. But I’m a sucker for a cool guy and I think he’s about as cool as they come. And clearly I like to get right up in your personal space when a photo-op arises, so please consider yourself forwarned. 🙂

A few days of fun in the sun did this body good and when we returned the tempered glass we ordered a few weeks ago to replace that silly plastic in our front door was on our door step and I thought installing glass door panels would be the perfect little project to tackle while I continue to procrastinate finishing up the touch-up paint still needed on that porch ceiling. 🙂

And here we are. My shoulders are happy, our porch looks happy (just don’t look too close at the ceiling in need of more touch-up paint) and our puppy is happy. More on that in a bit.

I started by taking off the little quarter round pieces that were holding in the glorious plastic panels from the inside of the door. I used the smallest pry bar we had and it proved that it wouldn’t be the perfect tool because it left some pretty visible gouges in the small little quarter round.

A quick trip to Home Depot and we learned a couple of things:

1 – pry bars come in itty-bity sizes
2 – quarter round this small is not a standard item, we’re thinking it was either part of the original door or custom-made/ordered

So I bought a pry bar that, other than for this project, would probably be perfect for remodeling a doll house. And it still left little marks in each piece but I figured a light sanding to soften the edge would make everything alright.

So I painstakingly removed and sanded each little piece of trim, and only broke a few before I realized that using a utility knife to score the seams where apparently the previously applied polyurethane or stain had created a bit of a seal actually helped move the process along.

For each panel I found it worked best to remove the smaller pieces of quarter round first (the top and bottom pieces) and then remove the longer side pieces.

For some of the pieces a little nudge with the utility knife was all I needed to wedge it free and for others I could hammer the pry bar up into the gap created by the utility knife so I ended up with no marks to sand. It was a challenge for me to work slow enough to wiggle each delicate piece free.

As the quarter round was removed I laid it all out to be sure I was able to replace it piece for piece. Each panel is supposed to be the same size, but you know how those things go and I didn’t want to take any chances. And let’s not worry about the rocking chair/church pew combo. It is irrelevant to this story.

A few whacks of the hammer easily removed the plastic panels, and uncovered that some were even painted plywood and plastic. Bonus goodness.

A quick pass with a medium to course grit sandpaper to remove the stray white paint left over that would now be visible from the inside through the new glass and we were ready for install.

Actually, if you are repainting your door, now is the time to do it, before installing the glass panels, but we’re going to talk paint another day.

This was also the point of no return, since I couldn’t exactly abandon ship and decide to be done for the night with 6 gaping holes in our door.

Since I was installing glass panels instead of plastic I really wanted a little extra security, considering the miniature nature of the trim that we had to hold it all together, so I used Elmer’s ProBond Advanced. ProBond is Elmer’s strongest and safest multi-surface glue, it is specifically designed to bond materials such as wood to metal, glass to concrete, or ceramic to drywall without the messy residue often left behind from a polyurethane glue.

Basically the glue is designed to adhere porous (wood door) to non-porous (glass panels) materials so it was the perfect application to give us the added security to insure our new glass panels weren’t going to come crashing out. It was my first time working with it and I really appreciated how it didn’t bubble up or expand to create a goupy mess.

The glass we used is 3/16″ tempered glass with a 1″ bevel. I used the glue on the beveled side and installed the glass with the bevel facing out, then reinstalled each piece of quarter round with 5/8″ nails.

We still have some work to do on the inside of the door. Sand and stain to match the floors? Paint it white? I’m not really sure and I didn’t want to rush to a decision so when that time comes I’ll just probably tape around each glass panel and go from there. But for now, even the pieces that I broke when I was removing them aren’t that noticeable as is.

And honestly, I would have opted for frosted glass, but another human who lives here persuaded me that the desires of another blonde in this house rank supreme.

That dog has just always enjoyed watching the world go by, and was a huge determining factor in how we picked our rental house in Curacao, so we’re just steadying the course on that front I guess.

Much more to come on this little upgrade including “why aren’t all oil rubbed bronze finishes created equal”, “every front door should automatically lock from this day forward” and “when something looks good in a photo doesn’t mean it really looks good in real life”.

Update: All the details on the new front door color are here.

But until then I think you should take a closer look at ProBond Advanced and check out Mixed Materials for other DIY projects you can do using this glue.

And because a look back is always a good reminder of how far we’ve come, remember when I first posted about my curb appeal ideas? Woah.

It was either when Joel was replacing the wood floor in our vestibule or when I was staining the floors in the living / dining room that I posed the question “should we paint or stain our front door threshold”?

The threshold is new pressure treated 2 by something that we installed when we updated all of our new exterior trim. It’s extra wide (2 x 10 or maybe even a 2 x 12, read: too lazy to get up and measure it right now) because of the whole process that we went through to build out the exterior over some old faux brick and then install siding over that. And has just been a big hunk of unfinished wood for months.

And call me crazy but I didn’t know people did anything other than paint the threshold. I thought we were all living together in a painted threshold world. But Joel wanted to stain it the same color as the floors so I immediately posed the question on social media, ready to bombard him with the responses in support of paint.

And I was schooled in the world of not-painted thresholds. So this happened.

You’ll have to look past the dusty mess of the door, but beneath that what do you think? I immediately fell in love. It just felt so rich and grounded, whatever that means. I am seriously in love with wood tones these days and have to give my husband some props for the suggestion. A stained threshold, who knew?!?! Apparently everyone but me.

That picture gives a much better representation of our exterior house paint color as well, Dewey House Grey. The grey and white and brown. I love! And that door is jonesin’ for an upgrade so hopefully she’ll fit better in this new color arrangement.

As for the how-tos, it’s pretty straight forward, but I’ll spread the word on a few things I should and shouldn’t have done along the way.

I had a bit of a mess on my hands to get started because I had lived in the “all thresholds are painted” world with blinders to any alternatives for far too long. When I stained the vestibule floor I splattered on the threshold, when I polyurethaned the floor I drug some of that onto the threshold and as I’ve been making small bursts of progress priming and painting the exterior trim I’ve gotten a little haphazard at times.

So I started with a thorough sanding first with a course grit sand paper then medium and finishing it off with a fine, 150 grit sandpaper. When I was done you could still see some spots of rouge stain leftover from the floor staining process.

I taped around the trim and used a folded piece of sandpaper to sand right up to each side of the door trim.

One of my main concerns was whether pressure treated wood would accept the stain the same way as the pine flooring did in the interior. Just to give it a little extra boost I grabbed some deglosser I had on hand leftover from a kitchen cabinet upgrade we tackled at the Taj Mahal and wiped down the threshold. Like what happened with our exterior trim while caulking I think it worked to our advantage that this wood had about 5 months to cure.

The curing process gave the chemicals used to pressure treat the wood time to dry up, but it also gave us time to use and abuse this heavy traffic area. The deglosser really brought out all of the scratches an imperfections, but I forged on. I figured worst case scenario was that we’d end up painting her to cover up all of the imperfections.

After one coat of stain we were in pretty good shape. The biggest imperfection that you could still see are the stain splatters I had created while I had stained the living room floor. Lesson learned – take the time to sand those out thoroughly. I went back for another coat to try to blend everything in just a little bit better after this picture.

You could also see some of the old scratches and marks from our use of the threshold through the months, but call me crazy, it didn’t really bother me. This guy is going to get stepped on so many times while we’re here and it is going to acquire it’s fair share of dings and bruises, I’m just not worried about perfection here I guess. If you are, then definitely spend more time on the sanding phase, get all of the little scratches and dents sanded smooth before proceeding.

Our door actually does not drag on the threshold, which would be a concern in extreme temperature locations, or at a door that is exposed to the elements. But since we’re in a mild climate and the door is nestled under our extra-large front porch roof it’s not an issue. And it helped because I didn’t have to remove the door for this project. During both the staining and polyurethane steps I just swung the door open or closed depending on where I needed to work.

I used the same stain we used on our interior floors and the same satin finish polyurethane that we’re using all our interior wood flooring, its ZAR brand fast drying formula and a paint brush from the Dollar Store to apply is so I could just through it out when I was done.

And after one minor puppy mishap, let’s just say there might have been a paw print wiping up experience, we ended up enjoying this view for a day or so just to give everything a chance to really dry.

When it was dry I taped around the bottom of all of the door trim to touch up the paint, creating that contrast I love so much between the rich wood tone and the clean, white trim.

And now I can add this to the list of projects that were completed the way Joel wanted, just ammunition for when someone tries to claim that their opinion doesn’t really matter when it comes to this little house project of ours. 🙂

And if you take a gander up you’ll see we’re in the process of tackling the underside of the porch ceiling as well. The project that is taking forever, and making every shoulder and neck muscle I have cry in pain on a daily basis. But she sure is starting to look pretty.

And front door, you just wait, you are on the short list, that’s for sure.

Tell me, are you in camp “painted threshold” or “stained threshold” or a different camp entirely? Are you swooning over all things wood tone, too? Does the blue ceiling have you dreaming of this little front porch’s potential? Let’s take a second to remember where we started shall we.

installing glass door panels and proof that we are crazy dog people

to paint or to stain the front entry threshold, the final answer