I accomplished my first task of updating the entryway this past weekend! I painted all my downstairs interior doors a very dark gray. Some people may celebrate their 4th of July with fireworks; I celebrate with an interior door paint project. Even though it was time-consuming, it was an inexpensive update and completely worth the time! I already feel like my home is becoming less cookie-cutter and a little more custom.

After seeing some photos of interior doors being painted, I’ve been considering this update for quite some time.

Since I also have white trim and lighter paint on the walls, I thought painting the doors would be a nice contrast. I also thought it quickly adds interest and dimension to the space.

When it came time to decide exactly what color to use, I knew what to do. My shutters and front door are painted Urbane Bronze by Sherwin Williams, and I love the color. A quick search around the web found that this was a trendy paint color for the interior and exterior. Young House Love even used it to update their garage doors from a tan color. Which got me thinking that color might look amazing on my garage doors too! Another potential project down the road.

Selecting the Interior Door Paint

So off I went to Sherwin Williams to pick up my paint. The girl working there suggested I go with their Snap Dry paint, which is recommended for doors and trim. It is supposed to dry in an hour. This seemed like a good option since I had a feeling that my doors would need multiple coats to get from white to the very dark gray color. I chose the semi-gloss with an ultradeep base.

For the most part, I use Sherwin Williams paint in most of my house for several reasons. First, I think it is high-quality paint. Second, there is a store about 2 miles from my house. They usually have multiple sales throughout the year, and sometimes you can catch a 40% off sale, but they had a 30% off sale for this project—still a pretty good deal. The sale brought the paint to a little more than $17 for the quart.

I had three interior doors I planned to paint both sides of, and then I also wanted to tackle the back of my front door and my garage door on the side that faces in toward the kitchen. (Although now I want to paint the side that faces the garage.) I decided to take the interior doors down off the hinges to paint since I would have to squeeze into some awkward spaces. I kept the front door and garage door up while I painted to keep the bugs out.

Watching Paint Dry

I put down some plastic and got to work. I could quickly tell that it would take multiple coats of paint to cover the doors. Each door ended up requiring at least three coats per side. I had several door painting stations throughout the first floor and would go from one to the next after each coat dried every hour. It was very tedious.

I used a 2-inch angled brush to work on the indentations of the door and then a smaller roller for the rest. I tried to brush and roll as quickly as possible since it was fast-drying paint, and I wanted to eliminate as many visible lines from the brush and roller as possible. After a couple of coats, I was nervous that they would look streaky. But by the third coat, they evened out.

I needed to pick up another quart about halfway through, so back to Sherwin Williams I went (so glad it’s close by!). I felt like I was starting to see the light at the end of the painting tunnel.

The Finished Product

A few hours later, I finally put the last coat on the last door and started hanging the doors back up. I was so tired of painting doors, but I am so happy with how they turned out!

While my garage and kitchen closet aren’t part of my entryway, I thought it made sense to paint all of my first floor doors at once. I also want to paint my doors upstairs, but for going to take a break on the door painting.

All in all, I spent about $45 on this project, including two quarts of Sherwin Williams Snap Dry paint, a roller and a 2-inch angled paint brush. From a time standpoint, I spent about two days working on this, on and off to allow time for the different coats to dry. In my opinion, it was completely worth it. In some homes this look wouldn’t work, but with an open space and white trim, it provides some nice contrast.

Now it’s time to pick out a new rug, a light fixture and work on some board and batten molding!