Four Hour Fix-Ups: Dark Doors

Somehow along the living room journey, I really fell in love with idea of black doors. Some family and friends pleaded with me not to go with black, and I am glad I didn't! I went with a dark color - more like a deep charcoal grayish, brownish, blackish. I am extremely happy with how this project turned out. I am going to eventually paint every door in my house this color.

When I first smeared the dark paint on my white doors, I had a panicked feeling. What had I done?!? I really wasn't sure it was a good idea but I went for it, assuring myself that I could definitely go back to white doors if I didn't like the look. The first coat looked pretty bad, but I remember from my fireplace brass painting project that the first coat usually looks bad. As it turned out, I needed THREE coats of paint to cover all of the white! Each coat (of each side of the door) took me about 45 minutes to apply.

I have now completely finished my third door, but this is the only one that was photo ready, with hardware back on. This is a standard 6 panel door. I'll soon show the other two doors - one is a French door and the other is a louvered doubled door.

This is seriously when I began to question my sanity! I tried a couple different techniques, but ultimately decided that I liked brushing paint onto the panels first rather than using a roller to put the paint on (too drippy for me). I made sure to get into the corners really well and make the paint as smooth as possible so I didn't have any dried up clumps later on. After finishing the panels, I painted the long vertical line down the middle of the door and then I painted the horizontal lines. Finally, I did the two long vertical lines on each side of the door.

After I finished the paneled door, I started painting the French and louvered doors. Since I did it this way, I was constantly rotating between doors and didn't have to wait for any paint to dry. This is after the first coat and would look great if you wanted a shabby chic kind of look.