Almost every exterior door in our house has undergone a transformation over the last few months. They're colorful and whimsical, and they make me smile every time I open them. So, come in, join me on our tour of doors. Let's break on through to the other side! (See what I did there? The Doors? I'm punny.)
Traditional to Whimsical
Your door is the first thing people see, and I think it should give an indication of what's inside. Our old black front door says, "We are stately, traditional, and we take ourselves quite seriously." The new bright red shade says, "Hey!! Come in! We're bright, loud, maybe a bit obnoxious, and probably a little much for some people!" And it's totally true. Our front door reflects the red-hot chaos you can expect to find inside. But that's not where I started. I actually began my door-painting mission on the interior of the front door.
Our entryway is small and has very little wall space. It didn't leave me with many options to jazz it up with furniture or art. I did my best with a fun light fixture, a bright little table, and a couple of pictures, but it was still boring. One Saturday morning, inspiration struck, and I finally realized my solution- use the interior of the front door as my statement piece! Within a half hour,
I was zooming off to the paint store in search of the perfect shade that would also compliment the furniture in the living room. I chose a bright, orangey-red (Chinese Red by Sherwin Williams), and immediately got to work.
Too immediately, in fact. I was in such a rush to transform my space that I skipped the first, crucial step of door painting. Primer. YOU HAVE TO USE PRIMER!!! Learn from my mistakes, friends. Paint with primer is not enough- you can paint 20 coats and it will still be a streaky mess. After the first coat, my door looked like a hasty attempt at cleaning up a crime scene. After the second, it looked like a toddler had finger painted with Campbell's tomato soup. Third coat was still streaky and way too orange. Same for the fourth coat. That's where I finally gave up and admitted defeat (though you have to kind of admire my commitment to doing it the wrong way). I put two coats of grey-tinted primer (use tinted primer for darker colors- trust me), followed by three coats of paint, and I finally had the color I was looking for. That is NINE coats of paint if you lost track. It's a wonder the door would still close.
Statement Door!
The exterior of the door didn't get painted for another four months. And you might have noticed that they aren't the same shade of red. That might bother some people, but personally, I think it's fine. Each side of the door serves a different space, and the color should go with said space. But that's really a matter of personal preference- you do you!
This week, I decided to work some color magic on the back door. The back of our house is kind of a big, white box. I have a whole plan for a deck transformation, and it started with this door. Well, really it started with the charming, striped awning I purchased off ebay, but since that's still sitting in a box in the garage, we'll say it started with the door.
Boring box
My awning and my design consultant
The awning inspired the color choice (Indigo by Sherwin Williams), and I took it, and my co-decorator, to the paint store to find the best match. This time I was smarter and used that same grey-tinted primer, but I decided against taping the windows. I hate prep work and avoid it whenever I can. I find that even when I tape windows, some paint sneaks under, and I still wind up scraping paint off with a razor blade, so I decided to forgo the arduous process of taping. Did it work? Eh, sort of.
Scraping didn't take very long, but it did pull some of the paint off the edges. I think that was mostly due to some weird caulk that was sticky and gooey. I'm not sure what kind of caulk was used, but it definitely wasn't the right kind. So I wound up taping the wonky edges and fixing those. But I still had to scrape when I was done! In the future, I'll probably eschew tape again, as long as there's not weird, sticky caulk.
Once again, I left the interior of the door a different color. It's still white (though it might not stay that way!). I love the happy surprise of opening the door to find this bright, beautiful blue. And I'm thrilled with the way the color livens up the back of the house. Stay tuned for the rest of the deck transformation. It should be super fun to see if my husband and I can install a 10x8 awning without killing ourselves or each other!
Surprise!!! Blue door!!
Let the deck transformation begin!!!
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