“The door is the smile of the house.”

John has a way of making odd, memorable statements like that. He also once compared mustaches to bacon—“the mustache is the bacon of the face, and bacon is the mustache of breakfast.” But back to doors. Our first house had a red door. The second had yellow. Our new house has a cheerful blue door.

It’s a happy blue, somewhere between peacock and teal with a touch of gray so it doesn’t go neon in bright sunlight. Choosing the exact shade took a bit of thought and a lot of squinting from the curb.

We started by taping up dozens of paint swatches in nearly every color family—reds, greens, many blues, plum, orange, navy, and charcoal—then stepped back about ten feet to see what read well against the brick and white trim. We repeated the exercise from further distances and checked the swatches at different times of day so the shade we picked would look right in direct sunlight, in shade, and under porch light after dark.

Before settling on a door color, I repainted the sidelights a crisp white to match the rest of the exterior trim. The old cream-yellow trim might have skewed how the door samples read, so getting the trim to its finished color first was important. After cleaning the glass and frames, I painted the trim with the same white exterior paint the pros used and then carefully scraped any excess off the panes with a razor for a clean edge.

We narrowed the choices to four Benjamin Moore hues: Spirit In The Sky, Blue Lake, Peacock Blue, and Tranquil Blue. Honestly, most of the swatches looked great with the white trim and brick, so it came down to which color felt right to us.

Because of a previous “oops-we-picked-the-wrong-siding-color” experience, I don’t trust tiny swatches. I painted a large rectangle of each candidate directly on four raised panels of the door so we could see the true color in context. I applied solid, even coats so the samples weren’t streaky and watched them throughout the day to see how the color shifted as it dried. The top left sample was Blue Lake; the top right was Spirit In The Sky; the bottom left, Tranquil Blue; and the bottom right, Peacock Blue.

Blue Lake won. The other options read too dull or too neon at different times of day. Once the decision was made, the door went glossy and gorgeous.

Painting the door took about half a day. For the finish, we used Benjamin Moore’s MooreGlo exterior paint in Soft Gloss, their semi-gloss option, which was self-priming so we skipped a separate primer. A quart was enough for the job, so the project was inexpensive—an encouraging change after a month of costly, bigger repairs.

My preferred painting routine is to start in the morning so the door can stay open and dry all day. I favor an angled brush for control, though John prefers a foam roller—different methods for different folks. I follow a specific sequence: frame each raised rectangle first, then paint the panel interiors, then the surrounding flat planks, always moving in the direction of the wood grain. For the vertical center plank I pull the brush top to bottom, then cover horizontal slats left to right, finishing with the vertical edges. I wait an hour or two between coats depending on humidity, then repeat the process and let the door cure the rest of the day. We remove hardware while painting and reattach it before locking up that evening.

We also replaced the door knocker and doorbell—those updates will get their own mention soon, since they involved a little dremel work and some paint. I painted the door’s sides but left the interior-facing back unpainted for now; once we update the foyer trim and wallpaper, I’d like to paint the back to match.

One quart of paint and a morning of work really transformed the look of our house. I spent far longer photographing the finished door than actually painting it—partly because the weather has been unpredictable—but the small change made a big impact.

If you’ve been delaying painting your front door, do it. A fresh, welcoming color turns a neutral entry into a cheerful greeting—your house will go from a casual “oh, hi” to a full-on “Welcome! It’s great to see you!”

A little before-and-after perspective is fun. The portico looked tired when we bought the house: an old wreath on a broken screen and green-stained front steps that we later power washed. Small updates made a big difference.

And for a final laugh: while I was photographing the door, a deer walked across the yard, stopped right in frame, and munched on weeds as if posing for the shot. It was the most entertaining photobomb and a perfect reminder that a welcoming home can invite all kinds of visitors.

UPDATE: I snapped an Instagram photo on an evening walk that captured the door’s green undertone better than my DSLR did—phones do a pretty good job sometimes!