Guys, this DIY did NOT go as I planned. It started out fine with a coat of primer but once I tried to apply my first coat of front door paint, it all went down from there... But I'm sharing my "troubles" with you to show that all projects do not go as planned. I also wanted to share what worked and what didn't work for our front door in hopes that it will save you all some sleep and tears if you ever decide to paint your front door.
Our front door was a dark wood with almost a cranberry tint to it. I didn't mind the color but Seth and I have been adding black accents to the outside of our house since we have white siding. I thought it would be nice to have a black front door to add some more accent, however, I did not want to have a black door on the inside of our house. Because our walls inside are tan-ish, I wanted a white inside door. So that was the plan. Here are the before pictures of our front door:
(Does my pumpkin "Hello Fall" sign look familiar? If you missed my DIY on how to make it, check out my post!!)
Here's a list of what you will need for this DIY:
1. Painter's tape - I prefer the green frog tape compared to the blue tape. I think it does a better job and leaves little to no mistakes
2. Paint Brushes - we used a 2" and a 1" for the smaller areas (in between the lock and door knob)
3. Small Roller - Makes the texture look better in my opinion plus no brush strokes
4. Interior/ Exterior Paint
5. Tarp
6. Primer
I started first by taping off our door. As you can see we have a glass front door so I taped off where the door and glass met so I didn’t get paint on the glass. Then I taped off our lock and door knob so no paint found it’s way to that (not gonna lie, I did get paint on our door knob multiple times but once you realize you have paint on it, get a wet paper towel and it should just wipe off).
After everything was taped off, I put a coat of primer on the front and the back. Seth thinks that’s where I messed up...
The paint I used at first was Rustoleum's Front Door Paint in black. I thought this paint would be easy to use but it was not. I put a coat of primer on because the directions on the back of the container said to put primer on. I also thought it was necessary because on the back of the door, we were going from a dark wood to white. Anyways, the paint was oil based and almost "sticky". After painting most of the front door with it, I was in tears and on the phone with Seth.
** I just want to take a moment here to pause and say that I have an unbelievable husband. He is always so encouraging and is always on-board with these DIY's. When something goes wrong, he never gets upset and is always SO understanding.**
So here was our front door with the Rustomleum paint...
After my call with Seth, he said to just stop painting and we would have to strip the door and start over. The next morning, due to my lack of sleep over the door, I headed to Lowe's Home Improvement at 7:00 AM. I walked in and immediately looked around for help and thankfully there was a woman in the paint section. I was about in tears when I showed her my front door picture but she told me exactly what I needed to do and what products to by. She had me buy stripper (it was orange scented and could be used indoors with no harsh smells), steel wool for the more difficult areas, a plastic scrapper for the stripper, and some mineral spirits for the areas that would not come off. She also suggested that I buy latex exterior paint and interior paint for the door instead of the oil-based mess that I attempted to use. I purchased my items and immediately went home to apply to stripper.
After we got the horrid paint off, we had to start over with a coat of primer and wait for that to dry. While that dried, we put a few coats of white paint on the back door. We had to do 4 coats total on the back/ inside door.
Here is the back door after 1 coat of primer and 1 coat of interior white paint:
And here is our door after 4 coats of white paint:
We ended up putting 2 coats of paint on the front door/ exterior door:
Once the paint is COMPLETELY dry, you can remove the painters tape. Make sure it is dry, otherwise your paint will peel off with the tape.
We removed all the tape and had a few small touch up areas but then our DIY was complete! Here is our before and after pictures:
Let me know if you've ever tried a DIY that didn't go to plan and what you did to fix it. Hopefully this post doesn't scare you away from painting your front door! Now that we know what paint to use, I think our next door project will turn out better with less tears.