It’s Time For A New Exterior Door Color

Years ago, I chose a color for our exterior doors from Benjamin Moore called Bird of Paradise. I originally intended to use it only on our front door.

But then when I built the little portico over the side studio door, I thought it was too cute for a white door, so I painted that door the same color.

And then when our carport was finished, I decided that I wanted the main doors that I go in and out of every day to also have color. I love color so much that I didn’t want it to be limited to the front and side doors only. I wanted to be greeted by a fun color every time I pull into the carport as well. And since all of those doors had a fun color on them, I naturally wanted that same color on the front door of my workshop.

So I now have a lot of doors that are painted in this same color. I really do love this color, and I’ve enjoyed seeing this color on our doors every time I pull into our driveway and see all of these doors. (Well, I can’t see the workshop front door from our driveway, but you know what I mean.)

But now, the front door, the side door, and the back studio doors all need to be repainted. It’s been a while since they’ve gotten any attention, and the paint has faded over the years, especially on the studio side door that gets direct sunlight for so much of the day. And the back doors, while they’re not really faded, are the doors that have gotten the most traffic over the last year as I’ve carried in plywood, lumber, tools, etc., while working on my closet and our bedroom. So they’re looking pretty sad now, too.

So I headed back to Benjamin Moore to get a new quart of Bird of Paradise so that I could give all of these doors a fresh coat of paint, and when I picked out the sample card to hand to them to order the paint, it struck me just how orange this color is. I picked it out years ago when I thought I would be using much more coral in my decorating. But as I’ve talked about in previous posts, as I’ve worked through finding my colors for decorating, I’ve swung from coral to pink. I don’t really have much coral (if any) at all inside our house. I’ve always chosen pink over coral.

So while I was there, I looked at a few pinks to see if I want to go that direction with our exterior doors, and I decided that it was time for a color change. But it’s hard to envision what a color will look like on an exterior door from a tiny paint sample card.

I remembered seeing a gorgeous pink front door from one of my favorite Facebook accounts that I follow — Amy Howard At Home. This is a color from Amy Howard At Home called Mom’s Heavenly Garden. So I pulled it up on my phone to see if I could find a similar color.

As I was trying to match colors to the photo on my phone (not generally a good idea, but it’s all I had), I realized that that color actually has a lot of purple in it, so I tried to find one that had that same depth of color, but with a little less purple in it. I ended up going with Benjamin Moore Deep Carnation.

That color looked so pretty on the sample card, in the paint can, and on their website, but when I brought it home and painted a sample on the back doors, the depth of color seems too muted compared to what I’m used to.

Maybe it’ll look different once I get a whole door painted, but I hesitate to waste time painting a door (especially since all of my doors on the house have glass, which takes more time) if I’m unsure at this point whether or not this is the right color.

As soon as I painted that sample on the back door, I walked into my studio where I saw the vanity from the hallway bathroom sitting there. Yes, it’s in my studio because I don’t have anywhere else to put it right now. 😀 I might try listing it on Facebook Marketplace, but I just haven’t had a chance to do that yet. But anyway, as soon as I saw the color on that vanity, I thought, “Oh, maybe that’s what I want!” I can’t even remember the name of this color, but I know it’s a Behr color. But I think the depth of this color matches what I’m used to seeing on our doors with the Bird of Paradise.

So after seeing that, I’m leaning towards taking my paint back to the Benjamin Moore store and seeing if they can add more color to it to make it closer to their Rosy Blush color. Since my paint has already been tinted a specific color, I know I might not end up with this exact color, but I think I’ll be happier with something closer to this.