Every homeowner wants their home to look as beautiful as possible. Curb appeal is essential, whether you’re planning to sell or intend on living in the home for many years to come. One of the most important parts of establishing curb appeal for your home is the entryway. Your front door and the porch surrounding it make a big statement to guests and passersby alike, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to impress.
While you may already have a front porch that you love, eventually you will need to do some touch-ups or renovations to the exterior of your home. If you’re planning on doing any type of home exterior work in the near future, it’s a good idea to think about repainting your front door. The front door is typically the focal point of the front of a house, so you should choose a color that not only speaks to your design preferences and aesthetic tastes but that also brings out the best features of the front of your home.
In This Article
The Front Door Is the Centerpiece of Your Curb Appeal
Whenever someone walks by or drives past your home, the front door is naturally one of the most eye-catching elements of the entire front of your house. While some neighborhoods that operate with homeowners’ associations may face restrictions when it comes to how they can paint their doors and other parts of their homes, if you don’t live under a homeowners’ association then you’re free to be as creative as you like when it comes to building curb appeal.
Whether you want something traditional and sophisticated or want to make a bolder statement with something bright and contemporary, the front door is going to be a major focal point for every pair of eyes that passes over your home.
Don’t Feel Boxed in by Traditional Standards
For many homeowners, starting with an assessment of their homes’ construction is a great point to start considering the best color options for the front door. For example, homes with traditional designs often feature bold, dark colored front doors. Navy blue, dark Hunter green, or black are common choices. Farmhouse and cottage-style homes often have brighter colored front doors influenced by nature, such as pastel yellows, pinks, blues, and greens. When it comes to contemporary homes, bold is the most commonly preferred option, in colors such as deep red, Royal blue, or even bright purples, greens, and yellows.
While traditional guidelines based on your home’s architectural style can be great starting points, you shouldn’t feel like you’re pigeonholed by tradition. Don’t be afraid to step outside the mainstream and create a beautiful front exterior design with unconventional color choices for your front door.
Try to Flow with the Neighborhood
Unless you’re absolutely determined to stand out from the crowd, try to choose a front door color that flows nicely with the other homes in your neighborhood. You don’t need to match your neighbors exactly. This is not only a bit odd, but also tends to be visually bothersome to most people. Try to choose the same tone and brightness without standing out too much or mimicking neighbors’ homes exactly. For example, if most of the homes in your neighborhood have bold, dark colored front doors, you should probably try and find a bold, dark color for your own front door.
Bring Your Home’s Exterior Colors Together
It’s a good idea to develop a color palette for the front of your home that consists of two or three shades. Most people find three shades to offer the most flexibility and aesthetic appeal, but you should know how to put your three preferred colors together the right way. Start by looking at the color that occupies the most surface area on the exterior of your home. For most homes, this will be the siding. If the siding takes up most of the visible colored exterior space on your home, then the visible portion of your roof will likely be the second largest exterior surface. If this is the case, then the shutters around your windows, the railings on your porch, and your front door form the accents that will round out your color palette.
If you have this type of color arrangement, then your siding is likely going to be a lighter shade than your roof, and the accents should be a bolder, eye-catching color that draws attention to your home’s best features. There’s no rule that you have to stick with just two or three colors, and you may have other features such as a brick or stone exterior wall to take into consideration. Ultimately, do your best to highlight the best features of your home and use color to move the eye to the places you want to receive the most attention.
Play With Contrast
Contrast, or the juxtaposition of light and dark colors, is naturally eye-catching. If you want to boost your home’s curb appeal and make it visually interesting, keep contrast in mind as you choose a new color for your front door. Contrast can help you draw the eye to places you want to become focal points of your home’s exterior and also help draw the eye away from places you want to deemphasize.
A few examples of using contrast effectively would include a dark colored or black front door on a brick home, a deep wine red or burgundy front door on a home with a lighter earthy exterior in green, grey, or beige, and deep-tone color for a white house. Ideally, you want the front door to stand out as the clear entry point for your home and prevent it from being visually lost in the other shades of your home’s exterior.
Go With Your Instinct
Consider taking some high quality digital photos of the front of your home at different times of the day and then use photo editing software to help you get a better feel for how your front door will look in different colors at different times of the day. Choosing a new front door can be an exciting process, so take your time and try to have fun with it as you choose your front door’s new color.