A Bright and Fresh Front Door

There’s no easier way to brighten up anything than with a a fresh coat of paint.

Our foyer was ugly.  White door, white trim and ghastly gold walls. It was so ugly, I obviously avoided taking any pictures of it before I started because I can’t find one. It really was that ugly.

The plan was to paint the entire foyer Valspar’s Shaken Not Stirred gray that I was using throughout the rest of the house. But the more I thought about it I wanted something special for the foyer.  I love the homes you see online with a freshly painted black door with crisp white trim and that it want I toyed with for the longest time.

Finally, though, I decided to use a dark color on the wall with the door and sidelights, in this case Valspar’s Mark Twain Gray Brick. A lot of light comes throughout the door window and sidelights so they could support a darker color.

The door was currently white on the inside and hunter green on the outside.   It had to go. I also didn’t like the style of the door.  The original plan was to make do with this one til I could afford to replace it with something I liked.

The improvement was already 100% just with the gold gone. I love the Mark Twain Grey Brick. It photographs much darker than it really is and looks great with the Shaken Not Stirred wall color. But it still needed some pizzaz. Enter Valspar’s Kiwi Splash!

This was a stretch for me.  I’m a very neutral color person, but I fell in love with this color. It’s a very bright Kiwi green and it kinda glows in the sunshine.  🙂

That is one strong color for a door and if you have never painted a door before, the first and most important step is prep. A color like this will show every imperfect, every drip, every streak.  After a day of sanding, patching holes, scraping off old drips – and this door had some monster drips, I was ready to paint.

I started painting and immediately had second thoughts.  The first coat looked AWFUL.  I wasn’t sure any number of coats would look good.

Here’s a picture after the first coat.  This is a fiberglass door and it has a wood texture that was very prominent. It made every brush stroke stand out – and not in a good way.  It took a total of three coats to get everything covered evenly and smoothly.  Be sure to inspect the door after each coat and sand down or scrape any drips you may have, especially on the door edges.  They seem to accumulate drips.

Thrifty Decor Chick has a great step by step tutorial on how to paint a door. As a matter of fact, she is the one who told me, when I was agonizing over painting my door a color other than white, “Just do it.  It’s only paint”.

So I did it.

I love the way the door came out and it makes the foyer and exterior of the house look so cheery. I even like the front door now.  Maybe we will keep it around a while.

Now to paint that hunter green garage door and trash enclosure!

I like the Kiwi Splash so much it’s the inspiration for the colorful dining area update.  But you’ll have to wait for that.  😉