Recently I shared with you our updated porch as part of the Lowes Creative Blogger “curb appeal” challenge. As part of it, I finally had the courage to paint my door black, which I have wanted to do for a long time now. Today I would like to share with you and show you… how to paint a door. Several of you had questions about the paint and the tools we used so I am going to try and answer all of them here.
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First off, I wanted to share a before picture with you so you can see the door before and after painting. And yes…that is a Christmas wreath on my door…in May…(don’t judge…hehe)!
My husband and I took a little trip to our Local Lowes store and talked to their paint department about the best paint for our front door. With their recommendations we decided to go with an oil base paint for better durability and overall finish. We chose the Rust-Olem brand in a satin black finish.
They also told us about Penetrol by Flood, which you can add to your paint which helps the paint not to dry so quickly which can help eliminate brush and roller marks. This was really important to me as I wanted a nice smooth finish which can be hard sometimes when using a brush and a roller. You could choose to spray your door with a paint sprayer but we don’t have one so that was not an option for us.
Let’s get started:
1. Wipe down door and wipe off any grease marks or stains.
2. Remove the door hardware. This is optional, but your painting will be easier without them. We took ours off since we were replacing our 35 year old hardware. Think about drying time if you are removing your door hardware though as your house will be unsecured when the door handle is off and when you can put your hardware back on.
3. Lightly sand over surface of the door and prime if the door has any imperfections or areas that may need some attention. Also you will need to do this if you are painting latex paint over an oil base or vice versa.
4. Tape off any areas you don’t want to get paint on like door hinges, windows, trim and door hardware.
5. Use good paint tools. We love the Quali-Tech Ultra Smooth High Density Foam roller and the angled Purdy paint brushes. I used the 2 inch size for my door.
6. When you start the actual painting with the primer (if you are priming) and the paint, be sure to paint the door panels in the proper direction. This will help with the overall smoothness in the final painted finish.
7. I start painting the inside of the panels shown here in the red and the #1. Paint in a circle in the direction of the arrows with your paint brush. Be sure to paint slowly and watch for drips which can happen easily in these sections…especially the corners. Then move on to the next panel until all the insides of the panels (the squares and rectangles) have been painted.
8. Now quickly move on to painting the raised panels and the middle stripe of the door in blue marked with the #2. I use the roller for these flat sections. Roll them smoothly and make sure that where you end and pick up the roller that there is not a big thick line of paint. Be sure to lightly roll this out so that there will not be a noticeable line when finished.
9. Now roll the area horizontally between the top and bottom panels. Be sure to following the direction of the arrows for the green section marked #3.
How To Paint a Door
10. Now for the final section, you will need to paint around the entire outside of the door following the yellow arrows marked with a #4. Be sure to paint vertically on the outside left and right sides and then horizontally on the top and bottom areas.
Your door will need to dry completely in between painting your different coats of paint. We needed a total of three coats of paint for it to be the nice finish we had been wanting. I made sure to paint the door when I could spend all day at home for a couple of days. I painted the door first thing in the morning so that it had time to dry all day long before putting the dead bolt back on at night so we could lock it up.
Then we added the finishing touches with some nice new hardware from Lowe’s which included the new dead bolt and door handle and a matching kick plate. I LOVE the extra touch the silver kick plate added to the overall look, plus it covered up some dings and dents that were in the bottom of our door.
I threw on some house numbers which I cut with my Silhouette CAMEO to finish it off.
And…I finally put away the Christmas wreath. I figured it was probably about time…don’t you? Ha! I whipped up this other wreath with some stuff I already had on hand and will share with you how I did that in a later post.
I feel like the color of someone’s front door can tell a lot about their personality. What about you? What color is your front door? Is it the color you want it to be? If you could paint it any color you wanted, what color would you paint your front door?
I want to paint mine yellow! :) I’m just a bit nervous about it.
We painted ours yellow this spring and I love it! We had to test a ton of colors because yellow can be tricky. We’he had a ton of compliments on it, do I say do it. It’s just paint so it’s easy to change.
I just bought doors from Lowes, they are already in the frame. Do you think this will be okay to paint without removing them from the frame?? Also, do you recommend I lay the door flat, or stand it up straight? I have to paint these within the next couple days, because they are being installed on the 22nd of June!
If given a choice to lay the door flat or paint vertically I would for sure choose to lay it flat. For me it would be easier and would be a lot less prone for drips. Good Luck!
Thanks for the how-to. We put new hardware on our front door last week which is a different shape than our old hardware. Looks like our builder put the hardware on and then painted the door. So…now we need to repaint. I am loving the black front door on your house. It looks fabulous!
We had the same thing and had to sand and fill with a little putty in a couple of small areas.
It looks great!! I want to paint my door yellow! Where did you find the “H”? I’ve been looking for a “P” for a while now and haven’t found the perfect one!
I bought my “H” rug at Bed Bath & Beyond.
I got the H at Hobby Lobby. It was gold and I spray painted it silver!
My husband recently painted our front door black and I love it! Love your new look too. Next we move on to painting the outside of the house. Can’t wait to see our final look later this summer.
I’ve been wanting to paint my door and shutters black so this post comes at the perfect time for me. I’ll be painting my door black on the outside, but white on the inside to match all my other indoor doors.
oh – I’d love to know where you got the H. I would love to find a D for our home.
Hobby Lobby!!
This may be a silly question, but is that a metal or wood door? We bought a house in December, and I’ve been trying to talk my husband into painting the front door for months. I’m a little more adventurous than he is, so it’s been challenging. After a lot of decorating and such, I think I’ve talked him into letting me paint it an acid green color. Keep your fingers crossed! I’ve given up on my original color…PURPLE!
Good Luck with your new color! Wish I was a little more adventerous myself! Black is about as crazy as I get LOL!! The door is metal.
I won’t judge you for having a Christmas wreath on your front door in May…I still have my Christmas tree up! Not because I want to, but because life just has been too hectic for the last 5 months to take it down. It IS coming down tomorrow though…finally.
If I could get the hubs to let me paint our front door, it would either be black or barn red. Love both. Now…to get the HOA’s approval, that’s completely another story. Oh well.
Thanks for the tips! We bought all new 6-panel doors for our entire house so we’ve been busy trying to paint them for months. It’s a lot of work!
It is a lot of work for sure. Wow! Good Luck. I am sure it will be fabulous once they are all finished!
Thanks for this. Our front door is still primed, I’m embarrassed to say. Luckily for us, a white front door looks fine on our house, but I want COLOR! I feel much more confident about paintinging it now.
These kind of projects always seem to fall to the bottom of the to do list! So glad I could help!
Love this post! We bought our house house two years ago and I hate my ugly gray door. I have been wanting to paid it black, but lacked the courage to try. After reading this , I just might go for it!
Is your door a steel door? Mine is steel and I am wondering if it would still work?
Is this for a metal door? Our door is metal and painting the front door is on my to do list once the kids are back in school.
Yes!! Our front door is metal!
Does it have to match your brick I have just a beige door when we bought house and I want to paint my door the brick is kind ofdeepburgandy ,i could send a picture too
Did you sand between coats?
No we did not. However, if you have a small spot or area where the paint drips you can do a little sanding to fix that between coats.
Hey Julia. Dont feel bad My front door ha shad primer only on it for 2 years now. LOL! I always have a problem picking out paint colors. I think i want a pretty blue on it. Maybe, Not sure as usual. I love the black door, but I dont think its what I personally like. Im more about beachy cottagey colors.