Painting our Front Door

The new home that we moved into in Northern Virginia has the ugliest front door. The whole street has this dark brown weathered dull front door on all the houses. The HOA has a rule about color and your choices are Black, brown or dark green. So we decided to be the first in the neighborhood to have a green door. So, our first step was to pick a color, our choice was "Fig Leaf" from Home Depot.

The next step was to submit approval from the HOA to paint the door. This would include paperwork, sample of the color and the approval of the neighbors on both sides of us. Yes, you heard me right, my neighbors had to approval the color. We received the OK and I went to work.

The outside was not all that difficult, just some cleaning with mineral spirits and three coats of paint. The inside was more difficult because of the gloss paint used on it. Here are the steps we took to paint the inside of our front door.

First we took the hardware off the door and sanded it with a fine sanding sponge. After sanding the whole inside of the door I washed it down with mineral spirits. I waited for the mineral spirits to dry and then used a damp washcloth and wiped the door down again. When dry, I put on the first coat of paint. The paint I bought was an exterior paint with a primer in it. The paint has a satin finish. I was also assisted by my husband to remove and replace the hardware. By assisted I mean he did all the work!

To apply the paint I used a one inch foam brush for the cutout panels and a 6 inch foam roller for the flat parts of the door. I taped the hinges with painters tape as I had to leave the door up to paint it because we painted in January. Three coats were also required for the inside of the door.
I waited four hours between coats.

We purchased black hardware to match the iron rail on the porch. Love it!