Fix Lovely: How to paint your front door, storm door, and hardware

http://fixlovely.blogspot.ca/2013/11/how-to-paint-your-front-door-storm-door.html

I've never liked white front doors. To me, they are so boring, with no personality whatsoever :-(. So when we moved to our new house, I was so sad to see a white door.

BUT! That's certainly an easy fix!

I couldn't decide what color to paint my door. Black is classy, but my front porch is kind of already a recessed black hole, so dark colors won't work for me. I was thinking a kind of earthy green or burnt orange...

But then I asked Dear Husband for his opinion in the paint section at Lowe's, and he said without a doubt that he liked this pastel blue color. Blue makes me nervous... I just don't like it!

I try not to be the type of wife who will ask for DH's opinion and demand to hear my own, so, even though the trendy teal/brown combo is my least favorite trend, since DH liked it, I went with it.

AND IT WAS AMAZING.

The storm door is this awful pinkish-white, and the front door is white. The hardware is brass... I hate brass.

First things first!

Remove the hardware from the storm door and the front door. I also removed the kick plate.

Take off the storm door, and pop out the little pieces that hold the glass in. Prop the door, and the glass, on top of little blocks so they're not on the ground. (This picture shows it already painted, but I wanted to show what I meant by putting it on blocks)

I didn't take out the glass until a little later

Lightly sand everything:

The door handles, storm door frame, front door etc.

You can do it lightly, you just want to rough up all the metal. and remove any coating.

Wipe everything down with a degreaser.

Set up your hardware on a dropcloth (or out in the grass), and spray paint it in the color of your choice. I wanted hammered copper. I even painted the brass trim that outlined the glass! I recommend Rustoleum Hammered Copper (liquid paint) for trim, and Rustoleum Hammered Copper Spray (spray paint) for hardware.

Paint with a good quality exterior paint. You don't need to use special "door paint" - that's a gimmick. Just use a semi gloss (or high gloss exterior paint)

First coat of paint on the door and trim:

Let everything dry the appropriate amount of time.

Do a second coat

Second coat here...

Let ALL of this dry at least 24 hours before touching it. The longer your paint has to cure before you reinstall things, the better.

I did have to put the old hardware back on the front door so we could lock up at night.

Next day, reinstall the rest of the hardware:

See how good that copper is on the chocolate? So much better than brass!

Here is the finished storm door, painted to match the surrounding chocolate trim, with the hardware on it painted in the hammered copper.

If you scratch the door with a screwdriver or anything, you will have to touch up, so be careful. It takes paint about 7 - 14 days to fully cure (especially oil based paint).

LOVE!

I had the coolest Irish harp door knocker, that was also brass... so I painted that copper too, and installed it:

I didn't want to paint the actual front door hardware (for security reasons, just in case. I didn't want things jamming or whatever), so I bought new knobs and locks in oil rubbed bronze (it matches the chocolate trim perfectly).