Paint a Statement Front Door in "Dignified" Blue

We moved into our house two years ago. We were looking for a home with a great layout that comes with a pool and a bigger backyard; preferably one that backs up to a greenbelt. Unfortunately, real estate in Allen is tough to come by – homes are selling the first day they’re on the market; site-unseen in some cases.

Luckily, we found a home that had everything we were looking but even luckier – it was UGLY so we had a shot at buying it at a decent price. I posted some good before/after photos in my blog post HERE when it was a mustard yellow with dirty carpets. Anyway, this house had the bones we wanted but needed a million cosmetic updates to really reflect our personal style and preference. 

We have plans for the front of the house: Painting the whole brick house in gray or white, adding shutters, and painting the front door. We don’t have the time or $$ for most of that yet (one step at a time!) so we’re tackling each piece one at a time. First task – let’s update our boring white door. The front of our house is quite washed out and is in need of some contrast color. A statement piece. 

​So I went looking for ideas on Pinterest. I found the perfect front door color at Miria Killam, # 5 in Sherwin Williams color “Dignified” (6538). 

When I picked it up from the store, the dob they put on the top of the paint can looked a little too purple for me. The picture in the blog looks different from the color on the website. So I was a bit nervous... I was looking for character/statement color; but not too far out there. 

​Painting a front door is pretty darn easy. My husband took the door off its hinges, we put it up across two sawhorses in the back driveway and sanded her down. I had to run to Lowes half way through because our fine grit sand paper was taking way too long. I bought a medium course grit of 60 and that did the job much faster (that and my husband’s taking over helped). We have a little Palm Sander that’s fantastic for smaller projects, but I wouldn't recommend it on a surface the size of our front door or larger. 
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Note: Make sure you wear a dust mask. Safety!

We didn't sand it down 100% to unfinished wood. It was more about removing a layer of two of paint and scuffing it up enough to ensure the new coat would "stick."

​We put the sanded down door back on it's hinges so I could paint both sides in one go. Make sure you 1) Dust it off 2) wipe it down with a wet rag 3) tape off all hardware and the floor below. 

Now it's time to grab your tablet, put on some Netflix (I was zoning out to some Murder She Wrote) and get to painting. It took two coats. Here's my little key of what direction to paint:

Next I let the paint set over night. I pulled the tape off. There were a few white edges peeping through the corners or that got pulled off with the tape. It took me about an hour to clean up the paint with a fine tipped brush (I'm a bit of a perfectionist with paint). 

And that's it. A great new update to the house done in one weekend; probably ~6 hours of work at most. Check it out!

I've got one question that I need help with... Challie and I are debating whether or not to remove the storm door; what do you think? I'm not a big fan of it. It blocks the street view of any seasonal wreaths that I like to put up and it hides my pretty new paint color. See what I mean (What do you think?):