I’ve been wanting to paint our front door since before we moved in, and we finally got around to it this week. Doesn’t the whole house look so cheerful now?
To make a long story short, we were told we could have a bright red front door when we signed the contract for our house, but when it came time to picking out colors (we had our house built), we were basically told that that was a tacky choice and the neighborhood would not allow it. Which is especially crazy because there are entire houses that are bright red. Hmph. At any rate, we finally painted it ourselves a couple of weeks ago, and I love it!
I started by cleaning of the door with watered-down dish-washing soap (we have a lot of oak pollen in our neighborhood and it really collects on the panel frames on the door). I also removed the door hardware andsanded around the door knobs where there was a poor paint job and some rough edges.
Then I went over the whole door with liquid deglosser, and was ready to paint! I followed Sherry @ Young House Love’s lead and painted the frames around each panel, the panels, and then the pieces between panels, in that order, with a 2.5″ angled brush for each coat. Always follow the grain of the wood when painting!
We used Benjamin Moore’s MooreGlo paint. We had been putting off painting the door until Sherwin Williams had one of their periodic sales because we loved their paint when we painted our guest bathroom, but it turns out that Sherwin Williams does not carry exterior paint in a semi-gloss sheen – and neither the satin or high gloss were what we wanted. So Benjamin Moore it was! We went with their ‘red’ color. Even with the primer, it took four coats to really cover up the maroon we had going on before. Here it was after one coat:
Since I’m a grad student and was basically working on my research from home this summer, I did this over a couple of days before school started so I could stay home and leave the door hardware off and the door open just a smidge all day, but this could also totally be done over a weekend.
The new red is definitely more fun and bright. It really does look cheerful now!
Love, Midsommarflicka
I think we were in our house less than three days before I painted our door. Glad you sent against the neighborhood and got the color you wanted! I love your bright choice!
We want a red door, just didn’t get it painted so far—they’re such a cheerful welcome!