Front Door Refresh

Blog Written by: Karin Usipuik 

Photos taken by: Bernine de Jong 

I’ve mentioned it in various posts and will always say that the easiest and most effective way to enhance or refresh your home is with a simple bucket of paint and a few hours of your time.

I’ve been meaning to paint our front entrance doors for some time now and truthfully they were starting to need a refresh.  We also have been wanting to start changing out all of our door hardware from the original brass to a more modern black.  Here is our step by step guide on how to refresh your front door with new paint and hardware.​

PRODUCT SELECTION

For this project, I needed a variety of products.  I visited our local Home Hardware store and the staff were super helpful and knowledgeable in helping me source the right products for the project.

The project we were tackling needed new paint and hardware for aluminum front doors.  They had never been painted so I wanted to make sure I had the proper paint and supplies.

The friendly Home Hardware staff recommended Beauti-Tone Stick iT primer as a base and then Beauti-Tone Designer Series Trim and Door paint.  We also used a lint free roller, foam roller and mini paint tray.

In addition to paint, we wanted to change out the hardware and we chose this Weiser Lock set for a modern upgrade.

PREP WORK

For some reason this felt like a daunting job but honestly it was not a big deal and didn’t take near as long as I thought it would. Probably due to the fact that I’ve got a handy husband and son!

When painting outside, the temperature needs to be 10°C for a minimum of 24 to 48 hours day and night. If you don’t paint your door during proper temperatures, frost can get into the fresh paint and the coating will fail.

I started by removing everything from the surroundings (ie: front door mat, potted plants, shoes etc) and gave the area a really good clean. I cleaned the unpainted door using safe prep. Once this part was done, we removed the existing hardware.

PAINT

We taped off the areas that wouldn’t be painted. We did one coat of primer, let it sit for about 2 hours to dry and then it took 2 coats of paint with about an hour of dry time between coats. We used the lint free roller and a standard brush for cutting it. This worked great. We found the lint free roller left a smoother finish.

HARDWARE INSTALLATION

We waited until the end of the day before installing the hardware and by this time the paint was dry enough that it didn’t cause any damage.  The hardware switch did require a few extra tools because the new hardware wasn’t an exact match to the old hardware.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

I am so pleased with the end result! It was tricky deciding on a colour that would match our Yellow Farmhouse. My local store was able to colour match, and I couldn’t be happier with how the paint colour turned out. The paint colour is called Natural Sanctuary (NPC-4). The new black hardware is such a game changer and really changed the overall feel of our front entrance!

Working with Home Hardware was such a great experience. They truly are a one stop shop for all your Home Renovation needs!