Paint Your Front Door, step by step

We are back as promised with the whole front door shebang.

First, here is what we began with:

Yup, it was an old maroon storm door with three issues: 1) the grids did not match up with the six paneled door behind it, 2) it was consistently jamming, and 3) it did not latch closed quite well, so it would bang open in a storm.

It was nothing but a nuisance to us, so we opted to go storm-doorless (simply like we chose to do in our first house) since we did not use it once in eight whole months (we have a screen/storm door on the side of the house that we occasionally use along with screen doors in the living room and sunroom that we use a lot more frequently). It is certainly not a choice that everyone would make, but we are psyched to go storm-door-less so we can appreciate our excellent six-paneled solid wood door that was hiding behind it:

So off came all the hardware that held our slammy-jammy storm door in place. Then all we needed to do was spackle those holes and use some exterior paint to touch up the trim (thank goodness the previous owners left that in the basement for us).

Oh but before we did any spackling we got to the lively part: picking the paint color. We held up a ton of options in all colors of the rainbow (plum, turquoise, navy, lime green, and beyond), but kept coming back to a glad yellow color. Here are the final four contenders (they look fairly similar in this pic but they varied slightly by how much white or orange they had in them). After looking at them in all types of light (morning sun, afternoon shade, artificial porch light at night, etc) we ended up choosing the top one: Full Sun EB1-1 by Valspar’s Eddie Bauer Home collection.

But removing the screen door and spackling & painting the trim was not the only prep task we took on. We also chose that our excellent original door knocker (which was rusting and peeling) could use some enjoy.

So we carefully took out it with the hope of bringing it back to its former glory and reinstalling it on our bright yellow door when we were wrapped up painting.

Then we sanded the paint around those areas, simply to get everything pleasant and smooth.

We also opted to remove the rusting brass plate on the bottom of the door and spackle and sand those holes. We did not have one in our first house and prefer the uninterrupted look of one big boldly colored wood door (but it is certainly another one of those personal preference things like nixing a storm door). Oh and we also took off our door handle and lock too – since we had hopes of sprucing them up while they were took out like the door knocker.

And now for a shot of sunshine in a can:

We mentioned that we chose Full Sun EB1-1 by Valspar’s Eddie Bauer Home collection as “the one.” So we talked to the paint pro at Lowe’s about what exterior primer + paint she would recommend (sadly none of which are no-VOC yet). She recommended Valspar’s Duramax since it has a built-in primer and is formulated to be extra durable since it is exposed to the elements outside. So we had her color match our Full Sun paint chip to the Valspar Duramax stuff and grabbed a quart of it in semi-gloss finish for around $15.

Oh but before we applied a single coat we used a liquid deglosser (Next Liquid Deglosser by Crown since it is non-flammable, biodegradable, and low-VOC) to remove any oil, grease, or other paint-adhesion-saboteurs (I have never typed that word, and I have to admit I liked it). In short it is a shortcut when you do not feel like sanding something you are about to paint (albeit not as thorough, but typically good sufficient to get ‘er done). You do certainly want to sand any areas that are not smooth before deglossing though (like the nail holes from the brass plate and other places we took out hardware or spackled) since liquid deglossers do not smooth things, they simply remove residue that might mess with paint adhesion.

Then it was time for coat one of our yellow primer + paint, applied with a small foam roller (to cut down on brush strokes) and a 2″ angled brush (to get into the frames of the six paneled door). Of course one coat did not do the trick, but for yellow paint going over deep maroon it was in fact a fairly impressive showing for simply one thin coat:

And four thin and even coats later (yes, there I go with the “thin and even” thing again), honey was looking miiiighty fine:

As in, I could not stop staring at her and smiling. So glad we chose such a glad color to wake up our drab brick and cream wood-sidinged exterior. And it looks simply as cute from the inside as it does from the outside:

Mmm, glossy yellowy goodness. It came out truly smoothly, partially I think due to using good exterior paint, and partially due to those thin and even coats that were carefully applied with a small foam roller and high quality 2″ angled brush. Not globbing it on (and waiting for each coat to dry before moving onto the next paper thin one) is the key to no visible brush strokes when things dry.

Oh yeah, and you might notice the hardware is all sorts of spruced up. We will be back with a dedicated hardware-upgrade post full of photos and instructions when it comes to that part of the process (there are too many pics and not sufficient time to squeeze that in here).

In the meantime, here is the door from outside (I could not fully close it for pics because it was still drying – but if you paint something in the morning, by evening it should be all cured up and ready to close).

Is not our porch happier without the old broken maroon screen door + dark hidden front door combo?

Shucks, it simply makes me giddy. And John loves it too. Oh glad day.

So there it is. A front door makeover that involved:

1. checking out swatches taped on the door at all times of day (to ensure nothing would change from something we enjoy in morning sunlight to something we hate in evening porch light)
2. removing the screen door and spackling/sanding/painting those holes left in the door surround
3. removing the hardware and sanding those areas to smooth them before painting
4. permanently removing a rusted brass plate at the bottom of the door and spackling/sanding those holes
5. thoroughly deglossing the whole door
6. refurbishing the hardware (we will be back with all those details for ya soon)
7. applying four thin and even coats of exterior primer + paint in semi-gloss for a pleasant shiny finish
8. reattaching the hardware when the paint was dry sufficient (but not fully closing the door until evening, so it can fully cure)

Woot. Enjoy it. As for the budget breakdown, whoop, here it is: one quart of Valspar Duramax paint in semi-gloss from Lowe’s: $15. Das it. Oh and if someone did not have spackle and a deglosser on hand those might be around $4 each on top of the cost of a quart of paint. We still have tons of paint leftover bee tee dubs, so a quart for a front door should certainly do it – even if you are painting both sides of it (we left the back of ours white like our interior doors).

Have any of you lately painted your front door? Any plans to if you have not? Is it crazy that this is the fourth time I have painted a door in five years (and the second time I have gone with a glad yellow color)? It is simply so dang cheerful. Here is hoping it spurs us on when it comes to about a million other exterior upgrades that we want slash need to tackle (including the possibility of painting the cream siding around the door, and even trying something with the brick exterior down the line). I guess time will tell where we will end up with that stuff. But you know we will keep you posted…

Update: There were a bunch of requests for some wider shots from the curb, so here they are. Remember that nearly everything else in the pics besides the yellow door might be on our change-that list down the line (so it is all a work in progress)…

… especially the big barricade o’ bushes that makes the door nearly invisible from certain angles…

Would not the power to move bushes with the point of a finger be an excellent superpower? Methinks I’d pick that over flying and reading minds.