31 Jul Brightest Door In The Neighborhood!

Posted at 22:22h in DIY/Flipping by Megan Beachum

Don’t let your door be boring!

Last summer it was a mission for us to get new doors on our home. After contemplating and a little time at Lowe’s there were four doors that would soon be sealing our home to keep more air in. Before I get to the fun part let me explain how this came to be! The original doors, or close to it, were here until last summer and they just didn’t do the job as well as it should letting more air out the door than we realized. Literally letting money fly out the window! Finally we got to throw those old ones out and put brand new ones in saving us air and money. But, the best part for me was giving the front yard a new look!

When you buy new doors you get to see all different colors in the store but have you seen the price difference between a red door and a plain jane white door? That’s why I’m here to write this! I did it myself and saved a lot of money with a little hard work and getting paint everywhere but on the door. I’m really good at that! I say a good painter is a messy one.

Of course I’ll throw in some before and after of the project because boy did it make a major difference! But, here are the materials I needed and used for this easy project:

Painters tape, smaller paint brush, paint roller, razor, painter drape, paint, and possibly a ladder (if your short like myself).

First, pictures are always necessary for a project like this but right after we took off the handle and locks so I didn’t paint them too. When painting a door like mine with glass you want to make sure to tape up the edges of the glass to not get paint everywhere when getting close to the edges. But, to be really honest it’s harder to tape curved surfaces than it was to paint the darn thing! I probably could’ve done a better job painting without the tape than razored it off the glass later. The process I took was to paint with a brush around the edges first of the glass then places the roller obviously wouldn’t be able to reach. After that I took the roller to the rest of the door. Just like that the first coat was done!

In between coats it is good to let it sit and dry for a few hours. But, this is a job that can absolutely be done in an afternoon. I did!

On to coat number two. I repeated the exact same process as before. It took longer to paint the trim than anything. But, word of advice take the tape of as soon as your done with coat two because that may cause a mess for you later.

One thing I do want to mention to save at lease one person a lot of aggravation if you are newer to house painting like I was a few years ago…. don’t wait on a brush to dry if you need to use the same color again later! put it in a ziplock bag and put that thing in the fridge. It’ll be fine and ready to go whenever you need it!

We did take caution that night when closing the door though. You want it to dry properly so while we did put the handle and lock back on because that’s not as important we did take the stripping off of the door overnight so we could close and lock the door properly but not have marks in the paint when we woke up the next day.

What type of paint do I use for this? Well, when it comes to a door it little different while you use exterior paint you want to consider your elements too. We chose one to not one weather the beating sun to not fade so much but to take water better as well although we have a storm door. Valspar in a semi-gloss finish for exterior is what we chose and all we needed was a small pint sized can barely using any with plenty left over. The exact color name was “Classic Red” although I think a better name would’ve been fire engine red as bright as it is. But, we love it!

This was a fun and easy weekend project that really made our house stand out. But, why red? Studies have shown that a home for sale with a red door tends to sale faster than a plain door. While we are not selling yet we want to stand out and have “that one house” with good curb appeal.

Funny fact: After painting our door we drove around our little neighborhood to see the other door colors and we were literally the brightest door in the neighborhood.