Curb Appeal Updates: Painted Front Door

It may be November, but it has been one hot fall here in Dallas. I wrote a post planning to paint our front door black way back in April and until this past weekend, it had not dropped below 75 degrees since!  The front of our house just soaks up the sun, so I needed to wait for cooler weather to avoid the paint drying instantaneously and looking terrible.

I was so excited to finally complete my long-awaited door transformation!

Here are the before photos:

The faux-honey-oak needed to go! And glossy black was my choice to replace it:

Literally nothing else about the exterior has changed since the before photos were taken in March. I have not lifted a finger in regards to landscaping, as you very well may be able to tell! And that broken motion-sensor light just makes my eyeballs hurt to look at it.

But all I can see at the moment is how sexy my front door looks in black. (By the way – what do you guys think about the shutters? Keep them cream? Paint them black too?)

To paint the exterior of the door, I followed the same steps I used to paint the interior of the door in this post: DIY Black and White Painted Front Door.

Visit that post for greater detail, but basically this was my process:

1. Wipe down the door with a mixture of white vinegar and water to get it squeaky clean.
2. Prime the door with one coat of Kilz Premium interior/exterior water-based primer.
3. Brush on a light and thin coat of Rust-oleum Ultra Cover Paint in Semi-Gloss Black. Let dry. Repeat. Let dry. Repeat.

I chose to use my trusty Purdy paint brush this time around instead of a smooth foam roller simply because my roller tray was in use for another project (the credenza). But really, I was perfectly happy with my paint brush results. The Rust-oleum paint was a dream to work with – it went on like melted butter and left no visible brush strokes!

Here’s a shot of the paint cans for reference. I bought a quart of each, at the cost of around $18. I have plenty of both left, so be on the lookout for future projects 🙂

I so love how it turned out! I want to paint everything glossy black now 🙂

But that’s not all – while I was out shooting those photos, I decided it was finally time to hang up my Anthropologie woodpecker door knocker that I have been hoarding ever since we bought this house! Okay, admission time… I may have run out to purchase it when we first started house-hunting… And before we even laid eyes on this house.

Is that one too many photos of a door knocker? Probably. But isn’t it darling? Since our front door has a glass panel, I hung it on the doorframe. It is more for me to coo over and caress than to be functional, anyway.

So what do you think of my new black front door? It’s a huge improvement over the fake wood, right?