Guaca-Scuse Me?: A Home in the Making: Colored Doors Tips and Tricks

I live in a new house, but we're making changes to make it feel like a home. When we moved into the house, the walls were tan and the doors were all white. This, along with the fact that I'm fairly monochromatic, made our open floor plan kitchen/dining/living area a little bland. And since our ceilings on the main floor are about 20 feet high, we decided that the best option would be to leave the walls as is (ain't nobody got time for that!) and paint the doors black. Yes, black!

I had seen colored doors through Pinterest and in real life, and just loved the complexity they added to the room without being a full wall of dark paint.

We painted 5 doors, both sides, so I'd say we've got quite a few lessons learned for how to help make this process easier for you.

Be sure to try out a lot of different shades! There are so many different types of "black" paint. In with the dark colors are shades of blue, brown, purple, green, or even yellow. So even though you're doing black, there's still a chance for you to add some of your own flavor! The first color we picked had too much green, and we painted the entire door before realizing we wanted something with more blue tones.

It's not necessary to take the doors off their hinges. We did for the first door, but kept the other four hanging while being painted. This just meant we could more quickly move from one side to another, and you're able to see the door in it's true lighting. Be sure to take off the handle, put some paint around the door frame, and lay down a paint cloth or something to protect the floors.

If you have inserts in your doors, like we have, start with filling in the crevices first. This helps to speed up all the other pieces when you don't have to worry about filling these in as well.

When you get to the bigger inserts and sides, be sure to keep the paint layers thin! With black paint on white doors, you won't be getting this done in one foul swoop, so be patient. Keep the strokes long to keep from paint bubbling up and looking sloppy.

Once the paint has dried, you'll notice some paint bubbles that have appear, no matter how careful you were when painting. Simply use a bit of sandpaper, sand down the area, and repaint. You'll again need to go in long strokes to make it look continuous. Repeat this until the door is free of large globs. This is all dependent on how careful you were in the initial painting process, so be sure to take your time!

And the last tip, keep the end goal in sight! If you do as many doors as we did, it may start to wear on you! There was a two week time span where we were between the second and third door and couldn't make ourselves get started again. Use the final vision as motivation to stay on task!

We love the finished product in the open space that we've got. It adds an interesting piece into the home without the huge effort of painting our very high ceilings.

So- have you ever painted your doors? Would you ever? Anyone go crazy with the color?!