Painting the Front Door Red

I’ve wanted a red front door for as long as I can remember. With the exception of a few (tremendously expensive) wood doors I’ve seen over the years, a solid red door has always been one of my favorite design choices.

I had always thought that I would have to wait until we owned a home to break out my paintbrush, but thanks to a very relaxed landlord I was able to bust out my paint samples just after we moved in! Yep, we’ve had a red door for the last couple of months – I’ve been horribly tardy in getting this post up!

Here’s where our front door started:

It doesn’t look all too terrible, other than the ugly color, but check it out once you were close enough to ring the doorbell:

Yuck. The weird shade of brown combined with a ton of chips and scratches definitely didn’t add up to a warm and inviting entrance to our new, albeit rented, home.

But with a bit of determination and more than a few coats of paint, and here we are!

You’ll have to forgive the filthy window panes – the paint hadn’t dried quite enough to break out the Windex when I took this photo. but it is definitely a big improvement over the brownish before.

I will admit, this process was much more time intensive than I thought. First I used a putty knife and a wire brush to get as much of the chipped paint. Then, it took quite a bit to tape off all 12 panes of glass and the kick panel at the bottom…

Not to mention taping off the intricate door knob…

Let me tell you, though, taking the time to really get your tape right can make the difference between a really good paint job and one that looks like it was done in a hurry – it’s worth the time to really tape off everything!

I knew that going from dark brown to red was going to take quite a few coats of paint, so I started with two coats of an odor blocking primer. Then I started with the shade of red we chose, which ended up being Haute Red in Valspar’s Pantone Universe collection.

Let me tell you, Brian’s reaction to the first coat of paint was hysterical! Turns out one coat of red over two coats of white primer leads to quite the fluorescent pink! He came in and very nervously asked if the color would dry darker. Fortunately, one coat later and we were getting closer to the front door I envisioned.

Yet it still wasn’t there. I had banked on two coats of primer and two of paint but ended up with two coats of primer and FOUR of paint! It might not have been as intensive if I hadn’t been starting with a brown door, but it is what it is. I just played it by ear, waiting for each coat to dry before deciding on whether or not another coat was needed.

By the time I got to the fourth coat, things were looking pretty good. The pink hue was gone, and the visible brush strokes were blending in.

After giving the paint a bit of time to dry, I carefully pulled the tape off to reveal the final result.

I’m quite thrilled with the result! I still smile every time I come home an see our new front door (not to mention I’ve cleaned the glass since this photo). You can get a better idea of how it looks now from this photo where I shared my newly made yarn wreath:

I’m pretty smitten!

Have any of you been wielding a paintbrush lately? Do share!