Painting the Front Door

Our front door was in pretty ugly shape.  It was dingy white and looked like it had seen better days.  We had thought about replacing it, but decided that it was too expensive and would be too much work to get it hung correctly.  Here’s a picture of the front door:

The front door yesterday morning

Pretty ugly and boring, right?  So, to spruce it up we decided to paint the door.  And not just to repaint it white, but to change it to red.  A nice red front door seems so inviting, doesn’t it?  Our shutters are red too, and I decided that the red from the door needed to match the red on the shutters perfectly.  I thought it would look odd if they weren’t the same shade of red.

I went to Lowe’s and picked up a bunch of paint chips and walked back to the shutter section to match it up with the shutters that we had bought from Lowe’s several years ago.  The color that matched was Valspar’s Lyndehurst Rich Brown – which is a brownish red, and not really too brown at all.  I also picked up a peep hole, a new door knocker, and a kickplate, all in brushed nickel to match the door hardware that was already in place.  It took 5 coats of paint, but here’s the newly painted front door:

The newly painted front door

I still need to touch up around the locks and windows and to install the kickplate.  I couldn’t put the kickplate in yesterday because the door was still tacky to the touch.  Yes, it’s not an excitingly bright red, but it still looks great, and it matches the shutters, which is awesome.  Here’s a picture of the two together (please ignore the brick molding, as it needs to be replaced once the weather gets a little warmer):

The Front of our House

I love it!  You’d never know it was the same old door.  It’s also really cool to finally be able to see who is at our front door before we answer it.  I always thought it was hard to put in a peep hole, but it was super easy.  One hole drilled with a 5/8″ inch bit then screw the pieces back together.  Literally, a 2 minute install and totally worth the 5 dollars for the peep hole and 3 dollars for the new drill bit.