HOW TO PAINT A DOOR BLACK + A NO SEW CURTAIN PANELS PROJECT!

Last Friday afternoon, I saw a tweet that fueled my fire for inspiration: painting the inside of our front door black. I had been wanting to paint one of our doors black - I just couldn't decide which one (because we have four on the first floor).  So after glancing at a few images from House & Home, studying the boundaries between the doors and their casing (keeping them white)...

Images from House & Home:

More than one black door works for this space because of the warmth

from the wood floors. We have greige tile, so it could look too cold.

I like the idea of a grey door...

something to think about...

Even French doors can work with black, and again -

keep the casing white, to flow with the moldings...

I went hunting in the garage... I painted the inside of our front door - a traditional white panel door - black - REUSING OLD PAINT I already had. I mixed a 1/2 quart of matte black with a 1/2 quart of semi-gloss black - and added a bit of water to thin the paint for this $0 makeover.

I started at the tops, painting the bevel of the panels first

(with a 1 1/2" chip brush)

The ceiling is 9'2" and the door is 8'

and I'm only 5'2", so I needed a step ladder...

After reaching the bottom panels, I waited a few minutes to go back and give a second coat to the top panels, and started to work my way out and down...

The door is smooth, so a used the roller in between the panels,

to help avoid streaks

I didn't remove the hardware, but taped around it.

Sephora supervised the project :-)

The striped panels on the windows didn't feel right

in the space anymore, so I switched out window panels.

Started to not feel the striped panels while painting the door. I slipped the towel under the door and opened it to get a clean edge (thankfully, the sun was already going down - and it didn't rain that afternoon)

But I didn't switch them for conventional panels - The panels are 102" rectangular tablecloths (I found at Marshalls earlier this year). I hung them from existing clips, and added back the white sheers, to make the window more layered.

102" tablecloths as window panels...

Hung the panels from existing rings with clips...

I'm happy with the way it turned out...

It gave the entrance and dining room

a little more umph and drama

(vs. the stark look of the builder white)

Although the shells still work, bringing in some darker color

starts to get the house ready to transform into fall...

I'm really loving the new look of the black door. To give it an even crisper look, I refreshed the door casing (with existing white gloss) which led to refreshing all moldings on the first floor... next is to work on refreshing moldings upstairs and the stairway. (IF you think your white moldings you painted a year or more ago are still white - guess again. I usually refresh ours every autumn).

I'm also loving that I got to reuse old paint for the project. In the past few months, I've been able to utilize three existing quarts down to one... (the other black used was during the dining room transformation to navy featured in the Wake Up Your Walls post).

Wake Up Your Walls

I'm sharing today's Dark Door Project post at a link party over at

Susan's Between Naps On The Porch

Metamorphosis Monday

as well as over at

PROJECT PARADE

Stop by the parties and check out the other projects

people have posted... If you too have a project you worked on this weekend - share your link over at the parties!

BTW: If you're one of the people inspired to go forth with this project and try it in your own home - SEND ME THE PICS OF YOUR BLACK DOOR - I'd love to see & share how it turns out!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend

and have a great week!