I shared with you on Friday how I am in love with this color: Hale Navy. And I finally painted something navy in my house: my front door! I’ve been intrigued by the paint-all-of-the-interior-doors-black movement for a while now. I think painting interior doors a dark hue creates contrast with the trim and adds drama and interest to your home. It’s yet another simple way to add a layer of personalization and beauty. I love it!

But I’m not into black furnishings or paint. It’s just not me. But navy? I looooove navy and I really fell hard for Hale Navy. So, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to paint my door to the garage in my laundry room and the inside of my front door navy. I knew it was the color for me.

The first step I take in picking out a color is do my research. I search for the color on Pinterest and I google images of it. I love seeing it in different spaces, and used to paint all kinds of things. {{I even have a Colors board on Pinterest.}}

The great thing about Pinterest is that you can virtually test drive a paint color before you buy it. Fifteen years ago when I was helping my mom pick out paint colors, there wasn’t really any way to “test drive” a paint color without trying it out on the wall first. We came up with some great colors, but we also had some misses too.

{I do recommend buying sample pots of different colors and trying them out when painting a large room or rooms. But it’s not as crucial when painting a door. Check out how I picked the gray color in my open concept floor plan HERE.}

Of course, even with Pinterest, I can still have “misses” when it comes to paint colors. I learned the importance of picking the right color the first time while painting my laundry room door. I’ll share pictures when it’s complete, but let’s just say I may or may not have painted the door two and a half times. Why? Because when I had an opportunity to go buy paint, I couldn’t find my Hale Navy paint swatch to color match at Lowe’s. And so I figured all navies are the same and just picked one up when I got there. {Are you kidding me?!?!} I should totally know better. So I painted it some navy from Lowe’s …. I can’t even remember the color. And it was bad. More like a royal blue. I promise I’ll show all the bad pics when I reveal the laundry room. So, then I painted half of it with some gray paint I had on hand. Another no go. I finally went back and got a new BM Hale Navy swatch, took it to Lowe’s and had them color match it in their Valspar Ultra Paint + Primer semi-gloss paint. Muuuuch better!

I love how the fanlights in and above the door now stand out.

And I love how the yellow lamp shade pops against the navy blue. Just gives me goose bumps.

And really, painting a door isn’t very hard or time-consuming. You just want to make sure you sand it all down a bit. I didn’t want to take off all the paint, just rough it up some. If you really want to be serious, you can use a de-glosser from the hardware store, but I just chose the sanding route.

Ignore the very chipped fingernail polish. 🙂

Then I wiped the door down with a wet cloth and taped the heck out of it.

There’s not much to it and the payout is huge! I ended up painting three coats just to make sure everything was coated completely. I didn’t want any white showing through!

And I know I already posted this pic above, but you can see the transformation from boring beige entry way to a fun, custom, colorful entry way that we have now.

I still need to find a new light to go in this space. And maybe a rug? I can’t decide on the rug, but I’ll be sure to let you know if I make any more changes.

Would you ever paint an interior door? Leave in a link in the comments if you have!

Would you paint it a dark color like black or navy? Or a bright color?

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