Painting the Front Door

Painting the front door is one of the easiest DIY projects you can do to give your curb appeal a boost. As you know, I’ve done this a few times here and here.

What I want to tell you is that I’ve always made the right color choices, but that’s not true. At all. What I am going to tell you is to test your paint colors first! I think I must have heard those words a million times. And even after hearing it over and over, I have to admit that I have had to repaint rooms, and doors, a few times over because the color was just not right.

Celery Green Front Door Before (the first time)

The most recent time was when I had to repaint the front doors. When we bought this house, one of the first, and easiest, tasks I undertook was painting the front door. It was one of the only things I could do while all the work was being done inside the house. The particular shade of celery green wasn’t really my favorite. Not to mention that it was pretty beat up and was in desperate need of some attention. Years of handprints and the general wear and tear of life had taken it’s toll.

The first color I tried was Sophisticated by Modern Masters. It’s their front door line of paints, and it’s so easy to use.

Modern Masters Front Door Paint.

It literally goes on so easily, covers in one coat. I put two on just to be safe, but the green was covered in one.

Modern Masters Front Door Paint – Sophisticated

The color was gorgeous, but I thought it didn’t go that well with the shade of brown on the house already. It didn’t pop like I thought it would, it just looked wrong. It doesn’t look too off in these pictures, but I promise that it just wasn’t right.

I lived with it for a few months, but it bugged me. My husband always thinks I’m a little crazy for being bothered by a paint color – “it’s clean, it’s protected from the elements – leave well enough alone“. But it nagged at me.

One day, while trying to clean up the garage, I found a can of paint I had leftover from our old front door (previous house) – Sherwin Williams in Black Bean. It’s a rich, deep brown with just a little hint of red. So, I tried it on the doors, and I could see immediately that it was a better match for the house.

Black Bean – Sherwin Williams on the left, Sophisticated by Modern Masters on the right.

I love this color on the house. It almost looks like a dark wood from the street. It’s so dark and rich looking. Love. Love. Love.

Black Bean Sherwin Williams Front door

I still need to update the hardware and door knobs, and paint the plate behind the doorbell. Actually, we need to replace the doorbell completely since we disconnected it when we took down that wall in the kitchen – people are always trying to ring the doorbell and can’t understand why no one answers. Thank goodness we have dogs, they are the best kind of doorbells. 😛

Sherwin Williams Black Bean Front door color

The entry way now – Sherwin Williams Black Bean

In case you were curious, the inside of the doors started out a white washed light wood.

The front doors from the inside – Before.

Even from that far away, you can see how dirty they looked! Uh.. gross! So, at the same time that I painted the outside the first time, I painted the inside a nice glossy black.