“The door is the smile of the house.”
John has a knack for quirky sayings. Once, after debating the relative merits of bacon and mustaches, he declared, “the mustache is the bacon of the face, and bacon is the mustache of breakfast.” But back to the front door. Our first house had a red door. Our second house had a yellow door. And our new house has a happy blue door.
It’s a peacock-teal blue with a touch of gray so it doesn’t go neon when the sun hits it. To pick the right shade we taped up swatches across the color spectrum—reds, greens, various blues, plum, orange, navy and charcoal—then stepped back about ten feet to narrow our favorites. We repeated the process from further away and checked options at different times of day and night to make sure a color we loved in direct sunlight wouldn’t look off in shade or under the porch light.
Before finalizing the door color I painted the cream sidelights white to match the rest of the trim—just to be sure the old creamy-yellow trim wasn’t skewing our perception. After a quick clean with a magic eraser, I used an angled brush and the same exterior white paint the painters left behind, then ran a razor along the glass panes to remove excess paint.
That helped us narrow the choices to four Benjamin Moore colors: Spirit In The Sky, Blue Lake, Peacock Blue, and Tranquil Blue. Honestly, most of the swatches looked good with the white trim and natural brick, so we simply selected the one we kept coming back to.
For a final test, I painted large swatches directly onto four of the raised panels so we could see the true color. I applied thick but tidy coats and evaluated them throughout the day as they dried (paint often darkens slightly as it dries). The top left was Blue Lake, top right Spirit In The Sky, bottom left Tranquil Blue, and bottom right Peacock Blue.
The winner was Blue Lake. The other colors tended to read too dull or too neon depending on the light. Once dry and glossy, the new door looked gorgeous.
The whole painting process took about half a day. We used Benjamin Moore’s exterior MooreGlo in Soft Gloss—a self-priming semi-gloss recommended by the store—which meant no primer was necessary. A quart was enough for the job, so the cost was minimal after several larger, more expensive repairs around the house.
When I paint doors I like to start in the morning so they can stay open and dry all day. I prefer an angled brush; John prefers a foam roller, so it’s a matter of taste. My workflow is methodical: paint the frames of each raised rectangle first, then fill the insides, then paint the surrounding flat planks, always following the direction of each plank (top-to-bottom for vertical planks, left-to-right for horizontals). After an hour or two of drying—longer if humid—I apply a second coat in the same order, give it the rest of the day to cure, then reattach the hardware and lock up at night.
We removed the hardware for a clean paint job, which is why it was off in the photos. We also updated the door knocker and doorbell (more on that soon)—those upgrades required a bit of a manhunt, a dremel and some paint.
The exterior sides of the door were repainted, but the interior side remains the same hazy blue trim color in the foyer. I’d like to paint the interior side to match once we refresh the foyer trim and wallpaper to crisp white.
So that’s how one quart of paint and a morning’s work made our house smile. It took far longer to photograph the finished door than it did to paint it—rainy weather hasn’t helped—yet the transformation was quick and satisfying. The small hardware updates probably took longer than the painting itself.
If you’ve been putting off painting your door, go for it. A fresh door color can change how your house greets you: from a casual “oh hi” to a cheerful “Hiiiiiiiiii! Welcome!!!! It’s so nice to see you!”
It’s fun to think back to how the portico looked when we bought the house, with an old wreath on a broken screen door we removed right away, and green-stained front steps that needed power washing.
And one more anecdote: while I was photographing the finished door, a deer casually strolled across the yard, stopped to nibble weeds in front of my shot and photobombed the photos. I laughed so hard—apparently the smiling door made our yard look welcoming, even to wildlife.
UPDATE: I snapped a quick Instagram photo on an evening walk that captured the green undertone in our teal-blue door more accurately than my fancy camera. Sometimes a phone does the trick.
Psst— Want to know where we got something in our house? Click the button below.