How To Pick The Best Front Door Paint Color
Choosing front door paint colors that are intentional and purposeful offers value and benefits that most will overlook. Accent front door colors are typically different from the remaining colors around the home, so they are often viewed as the home’s exterior focal point.
Picking a good color scheme involves more than just inspiration. Accepting paint color recommendations from house painters or decorators doesn’t always promise the inviting, cheery, or complimentary look you desire.
Since a front door can often be seen from afar, the color will make an instant impression, impacting your guests from the second they arrive. Just because a front door can be repainted easily doesn’t mean the perfect color choice should be an afterthought.
When painting a house, the front door color should be a significant consideration for choosing the best paint colors.
Coordinating Paint Color With Your Surroundings
Look around your neighborhood and see what colors your neighbors have. Compare colors that make your home stand out, and remember to consider your community HOA rules.
One of the most important considerations is choosing colors that will complement the existing layout and design of the home. Take particular notice of the landscape’s natural characteristics and the home’s architecture.
Homes built in 2008 or later benefit best from current paint trends to enhance contemporary characteristics, offering modern ques that are suitable, intentional, and current.
Painting Front Door Trim & Side Lights
When choosing paint colors, some forget that doors are not the only areas capable of being painted. Door jams, door trim, side lights, and transoms are also paintable options that help to create uniformity.
Storm doors provide additional front door protection, but when the storm and front doors don’t match, a storm door also conceals the door color. Therefore, it’s best to paint the screen or storm doors to match the front door if you want the accent door color to be noticeable.
The Affect Bold Paint Color Have
Colors considered bold are not limited to yellows or reds. “bold” and ” energetic ” terms are often interchangeable verbiage describing similar paint colors, making the descriptions hard to understand.
Bold ranges from colors that stand out, like Sherwin Williams Recycled Glass, to rich and deep hues, like Benjamin Moore Hunter Green. Both colors are considered green and bold but differ in every other way.
Energetic colors like yellow draw immediate attention and are most commonly cheerful and bright.
Why Paint a Red Front Door
Tradition has it that red front doors symbolize homeownership. While a red front door may not represent the same thing today, it still offers an elegant look that will catch the eye.
Due to house paint fade, we do not recommend red paint colors for exterior door painting applications, but if you are adamant, we have a few red paint color recommendations by Sherwin-Williams that are not only show stoppers but will cover and last longer.
Yellow Paint Color & Coverage
Yellow paint colors stand out and are accentuated best against dark or neutral backgrounds, especially against dark blue or white homes. Front doors containing yellow are eye-catching, like red. However, yellow is another color that fades quickly and is hard to cover.
A basic rule of thumb when painting is that a primer is needed when using vivid colors. Painters must apply one or two coats of white primer before painting yellow exterior doors, shutters, or other accent areas.
If you are lucky enough to find a yellow exterior paint color that you like, be prepared for at least three top coats of paint for proper paint coverage.
Blue and Green Colors
Blue and green are naturally warm colors, available in shades ranging from dark to light intensities. Light pastel blue and green colors provide a soft, subtle, and inviting accent. Their airy characteristics make blue and green desirable to many home and small business owners.
Navy Blue and Sage Green are standard paint colors found worldwide. In Raleigh, NC, homes are known for their hybrid Southern charm, also attributed to warm colors like blue and green. Additionally, the versatility of blue and green paint colors makes them genuinely advantageous, allowing you to match any front door hardware.
Classic White & Black Door Colors
Traditional is another term that gets overused and becomes convoluted to interpret. Let’s substitute the word traditional for previously popular or common.
Black Paint Colors
Sometimes, simplicity is most appealing. Black and white doors remain the most common colors. The best black colors are not always easy to distinguish, and the darkest shades of black are not always the best fit for front doors.
A white house with charcoal accents serves the purpose of being dark and rich, similar to black.
White Paint Colors
White and cream front doors should match the exterior trim color. If painting a cream front door is a consideration, make sure the color offers enough visible contrast.
Choosing the Best Paint
At a minimum, choosing durable front door paint involves buying the best exterior house paint. Long-lasting paint will prevent you from having to repaint the door as often and preserve the door for longer. But choosing quality paint isn’t as straightforward as buying the most expensive paint.
Front door-specific acrylic or oil-based paint will not stick to weather stripping, can withstand extreme heat and excessive moisture, and offers enhanced color retention. Furthermore, front door-specific paints and enamels containing advanced color retention and large volumes of pigmentation promote paint color retention for extended periods.
Front, Back, & Side Door Colors
Door accents are best for main doors and focal points. Side doors, crawlspace, and back doors should match the home’s trim.
Storm doors, on the other hand, play a huge role in unifying the front door’s color. As professional painters, we often recommend painting the storm door to match the front door.
Natural Stained Wood Doors
A home’s first impression and value are often evaluated by front door sizes and configurations. Stained wood front doors provide the most natural and warm feeling of any door style. Conclusively, Mahogany and hardwood front doors don’t take paint very well. Plus, covering up an expensive wood door with paint is counterintuitive.
Large mahogany doors with large transoms and sidelights are often statement pieces for expensive homes, increasing anticipation for entry like no other natural elements. Additionally, like paint, a wood door stain color is just as essential to get right. Most notably, re-staining front doors is ten times more expensive than painting them.
Natural, Dark Oak, and Ebony are the most common colors for wooden front doors. Cedar, Natural Oak, and Mahogany all have a subtle red undertone that not everyone will desire.
Natural pine front doors are best stained using light or natural colors. Lighter stains will showcase the natural golden color characteristic of pine. The most advantageous part of staining front doors with light-colored stains is that they don’t fade as quickly or draw additional heat to the surface.
Picking Front Door Colors for Brick Homes
Paint colors on natural brick homes don’t have to be accented or elevated. The color of the brick will always make the most noticeable impact.
Front door colors for brick homes work best when they are neutral and complement the natural surroundings. If the brick on the house is red, make sure you don’t clash colors by selecting a red front door.
How to Choose Coordinating Neutral Colors
The easiest way to choose a front door paint color that matches the rest of the house is to select the accent color based on the predominant color. Selecting a lighter or darker version of the main color is a way to coordinate paint colors. For example, if the siding is a light gray, choose the darkest shade within that same family for the shutters or front door color.
Neutral colors will always stand the test of time and complement surrounding areas best. When a neutral color is added, it allows the ultimate color flexibility for accent colors without worrying whether it will match. Neutral colors allow you to change surrounding colors without having to repaint to fit a new color palette.
