The Yellow Door

Recently my good friend Jenny asked me what paint finish I used to paint our front door and it got me thinking this might be a relevant post for new home owners or those looking to give the front of their house a face lift.  As always, anytime I start a project I always Google it and see what others have to say.  You can modify according to what you want/need.

-STEP 1- CHOOSE A PAINT COLOR, FINISH AND PRIMER.  Seems simple enough right?  Wrong.  Well, wrong if you're as indecisive as me!  Choosing yellow took some time to get it right (first try = school bus yellow).  Consider how the light will hit your house as it may impact the color.  For the finish, make sure you buy exterior paint.  I personally went with a satin finish and think it's a personal preference.  As for a primer, I chose a gray primer because it's what we had on hand and it worked well in going over a black door. 

-STEP 2- PRIME YOUR DOOR. Find a good quality small foam cabinet/door roller and a brush.  The roller will work great on the larger surface areas and you can use the brush to get into the crevices.  Two coats of primer is what I did, but again depends what color you're going over.  Let the primer dry about 2 hrs between the coats.

-STEP 3- PAINT YOUR DOOR. Wash up that roller and brush and use the same tools for painting.  Once I got my yellow correct, it still took me 3 coats.  I probably could've been fine with 2, but I'm picky.  Oh and one other snafu I should divulge, probably not the best idea to paint the side window panels to the door.  I followed the lead of the previous owners (BIG MISTAKE) and painted my side panels yellow along with the door.  I mean the door was black and so were the side panels so I felt it was sort of a painting by color thing, WRONG!  A yellow door AND yellow side panels = no bueno.  Perhaps a different color would've looked ok, however in this case it did not.  Proceed with caution my friends if you choose to paint those panels or you'll spend a day fixing a mistake.  Let each coat dry about 2 hrs in between before doing the next. 

-STEP 4- DECORATE YOUR DOOR.  I had no idea there were so many options for handles and door knockers out there, but trust me, there are.  Overstock and Amazon are great places to look.  I found our handleset (Camelot Exterior Handleset with Deadbolt, Matte Black) on Amazon for a decent price.  The ring door knocker from Restoration Hardware was more of a splurge, but worth it in my book.  Unfortunately they no longer carry this in matte black though!

All in all I would say this is an easily doable weekend project, as long as your name isn't Emily, and you can choose paint colors without having second thoughts.

Happy painting!