“The door is the smile of the house.”
John says weird things like that sometimes. He also once compared mustaches to bacon—“the mustache is the bacon of the face, and bacon is the mustache of breakfast.” But back to the front door. Our first house had a red door. Our second house had a yellow door. For the new house we chose a cheerful blue.
It’s a happy blue with a peacock-teal vibe and a touch of gray so it doesn’t read neon in bright sunlight.
To choose the shade we taped up many swatches in different colors—reds, greens, several blues, plum, orange, navy and charcoal. We stepped back about ten feet to see how each swatch read, then moved farther away to confirm the choice at a distance. We checked the samples at different times of day and night to be sure the color looked right in direct sun, in shade, and under the porch light.
Before finalizing the door color I painted the sidelights white to match the house trim. The old creamy-yellow trim might have skewed how the door color read, so we wanted the sidelights in their permanent color first. After cleaning them with a magic eraser, I used an angled brush and the same white exterior paint the painters left behind, then used a razor to remove excess paint from the glass panes.
That process narrowed our choices to four Benjamin Moore colors: Spirit In The Sky, Blue Lake, Peacock Blue, and Tranquil Blue. Nearly any of the swatches would have worked with the white trim and natural brick, so we chose the one we loved most.
Next came the full-size test swatches. After a previous siding-color mishap, I insist on painting large rectangles of each option directly on the door so the true color is obvious. I applied each sample—Blue Lake (top left), Spirit In The Sky (top right), Tranquil Blue (bottom left), and Peacock Blue (bottom right)—to separate raised panels with thick, even coats so the colors could be evaluated as they dried. Paint tends to darken slightly as it dries, so we observed the swatches over the course of the day.
Blue Lake won.
The other colors read too dull or too neon in different lighting. Here’s the finished door, glossy and gorgeous.
Painting the door took about half a day. We used Benjamin Moore’s exterior paint recommended for doors—MooreGlo in Soft Gloss, which is essentially a semi-gloss. It’s self-priming, so no separate primer was needed. A quart was enough for the project, keeping costs low after a month of bigger repair expenses.
My preferred method is to start in the morning so the door can stay open and dry all day. I use an angled brush; John prefers a foam roller, so we each do our thing when appropriate.
I follow a specific order: paint the frames around each raised rectangle, then the interiors, then the flat planks around and between them. I work with the grain—top to bottom for vertical planks, left to right for horizontal slats—and finish by dragging the brush top to bottom on the outer verticals.
After the first coat dries for an hour or two (longer in humid weather), I repeat the process for a second coat and let it cure the rest of the day. We remove the hardware while painting and reattach it before locking up at night. We also updated the door knocker and doorbell, which involved some dremel work and paint—details to come.
I repainted the sides of the door but left the back alone for now. The back still shows the foyer’s dusty blue trim; I’d like to repaint that trim and the wallpaper in the foyer white before matching the interior side of the door to the new exterior shade.
One quart of paint and a morning’s work gave our house a brighter, friendlier face. Photographing the finished door felt like the longer task—especially with unpredictable weather—but the actual painting was quick. The small hardware updates ended up taking longer than the painting itself.
If you’re procrastinating on painting your door, do it. A fresh color can change how your home greets you: from a casual “oh hi” to an enthusiastic “Welcome! It’s so great to see you!”
It’s fun to compare the current portico to how it looked when we bought the house—complete with an old wreath on a broken screen door that we removed right away. The front steps were green with grime before we power washed them.
And there was that unexpected moment when a deer photobombed the photoshoot. It strolled across the yard, stopped to nibble weeds right in front of my camera, and I couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe our smiling door made the yard seem extra welcoming.
UPDATE: I snapped a quick phone photo on an evening walk that captures the green undertone in our teal door more accurately than my fancy camera did—funny how that happens.
