The Yellow Door: A Super Quick Transformation!

After giving our inner porch a lick of paint on the walls and fitting some Karndean Loose Lay flooring, I felt the front door was crying out for a little bit of attention too.

I like to refer to this door as the “not forever door” as quite frankly, I hate it and with enough wishful thinking, I’m pretty sure we’ll replace it one day. But until we win some millions – it’s got to stay. So I’m on a mission to make the front door look a little nicer to look at in the meantime, and a coat of paint to transform it, was exactly what it needed!

Since this is going to be a quick makeover, I decided to use Chalk Paint for the job. It’s perfect for lazy DIYers because you don’t need to sand anything back, so it means you can achieve an instant transformation in basically, minutes.

Chalk Paint may not be the most obvious choice when it comes to painting a door, but there’s no reason not to use it! For a quick refresh, I think it’s perfect.

I wanted to go for a pop of colour in here; something fun and vibrant – and after someone tagging me on an Instagram photo (I can’t remember who you are – sorry!!) I was convinced mustardy yellow was the perfect colour. And even more perfect, because I already had a pot a paint ready to go (it was meant for another DIY project – but unfortunately that’s had to wait!).

The colour I’m using is Arles, which was very kindly gifted to me by the team at Annie Sloan. It’s only a tester pot and it didn’t *quite* do the whole door (I had to buy another), but it was very darn close! The only prep-work I had to do was to add some masking tape and give the door a quick clean before I started.

The paint went on super easy and one coat gave really really good coverage, especially considering it was a horrendous dark brown before. I’ve used different branded paints on other woodwork throughout the house and often had to do between 3-4 coats, so I was really impressed that I only needed two with this one, to get full coverage of the mustardy yellow.

I painted the glazing very slightly as well, just to cover up existing paint on there until I have the time to get the scraper out and scrape it all off. It’s not really that noticeable though and barely picks up on the photos.

I then buffed on some wax, just to make the paint a little more durable. And that was it! Within just several hours the door had a total transformation. I love the pop of colour in our hallway now against that bright white and I think it goes really well with the natural wood-effect floor too.

Obviously, this room needs a lot of work still (spy the peeling wallpaper anywhere?! And flaky paint skirting?!) but it looks a darn sight better for now. And even if we get to replace the door in the future – I’m definitely going for a popping colour on that, too!

What do you think to my quick-transformation mustardy coloured door? Would you have gone for a pop of colour or kept it more muted?