The unfinished front door

Last week, I posted about repainting our front door and refinishing the brass door knobs. This post took me a long time to write because I'm not quite happy with my front door. Prior to repainting our door, I contemplated for a very long time about what colors to paint it. I really wanted to paint it a bright and bold color like blue or yellow but in the end chickened out. I decided to stick to plain old white because I can't afford to mess with our front door. Front doors are not cheap and can cost a pretty penny (about $500-1000 is common). This project turned out to be quite stressful because I was really nervous about messing up our door.

Here is a before picture of the front door. It was slightly yellow/cream in color. Our house trim is plain white. I can't remember if our front door has always been cream/yellow or has yellowed due to sun exposure. Its really hard to tell in pictures the true color but its a tone or two lighter then masking tape.

First off, I finished off the brass door knobs. I ended up taking it off the door because my dad was there to help me. Refinishing the door knobs alone made a big difference. Our door looks so much more polished even though its so dirty and yellow. Below are pictures of the door already painted.

Then came taping the door and cleaning up all the dirt. Sorry I don't have any pictures of it. I used a plain foam roller and brush to paint our door. I also used only 1 quart of Behr outdoor semi gloss white paint.  Heres a close up of the color difference that I tried to capture. You can see where I painted and haven't painted right next to the door knob. 

Finally, here's our new freshly painted white front door. I still haven't removed the masking tape on the sides and extra paint that got stuck on the glass. I repainted both sides of our door and the project took me half the day because I had to wait for everything to dry. I painted one coat on the inside and two full coats on the outside of our door because it was more yellow. 

Heres a side by side comparison for the front door.

Review of the painting the front door: For a project that took me half the day, it didn't make a dramatic difference. Refinishing the door knob alone made a bigger difference. Our front door does look fresher and more coherent with the rest of the house/trim. The whole project cost about $20 for paint and supplies. I still need to scrap off all the excess paint on the glass, remove duct tape along the door, and paint the door bell. I can't wait to officially get rid of all brass colors from our house. 

Future plans for the front door/porch: I plan to do a post about how to decorate the front door without making it look cluttered and sprucing up our front porch on a budget. Heres a sneak peek of my front porch: 

Stay tuned for my upcoming posts.