Interior Black Doors

A couple years ago, the Mister & I ripped all the carpet off the stairs, added new treads, stained them dark walnut, poly’d them (3 coats), and painted the risers white. The whole hallway was painted (Benjamin Moore) Revere Pewter, one of my all-time favorite neutrals.Every. Single. Spindle. was removed, primed, painted (2 coats), and replaced. The banister was painted and poly’d (3 coats).

It’s lovely and updated and we love it.

The fact that the tile flooring at the base of these stairs still has to all be replaced is on my ignore list. For now.>

Moving to the second floor, at the top of that newly gorgeous staircase, is 4 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a linen closet. And if you’re new here, this is a typical family home, 25 years old, 8 foot ceilings – so the hallways here? Totally conventional, standard, predictable, average, oh, too many adjectives? Get my point?

They’re Bored Sh*tless, line 1.

Here’s a photo of the second floor of our house BEFORE we even moved in. The image you’re about to view is graphic, and the abundance of orangey oak and pinky-beige is disturbing.

Sorry to do that to you, but sometimes life isn’t pretty. Here’s that same second floor now

Black doors. Beautiful, elegant, black interior doors. Of course, painting out all the door frames in white helps too.

All the old mahogany flat panel interior doors were replaced. But friends, these are not ‘special’ or ‘upscale’ interior doors – these are run-of-the-mill, $35 Home Depot 6 panel doors. But in black, they become special.

The decor in each bedroom is (of course) different, so I still wanted the side facing into the bedrooms/bathroom to be white. Not at all difficult, and no tape was used. In fact, none of this project was difficult, it was time consuming for sure, but pretty easy for such dramatic results.

When we installed the new doors , we updated the handles and hinges to a brushed nickel lever. But FYI, I have spray painted door handles in the past with great success

I used Sherwin Williams All Surface Lacquer in ‘Caviar’ for the doors, satin finish. Use a 1 1/2” angled brush in all the panel detail, then a small foam roller on the rest. The foam roller is imperative to a smooth finish.

The louvered door is the linen closet. It was purchased unfinished wood, so was spray primed with Zinsser Cover Stain, then brush painted. All the doors got 2 coats, back and front. The white used is Sherwin Williams ‘Oxford White’, satin finish.

So I’m feeling pretty good about checking this off the house “To Do” List – yes, it took 2 years to get to a project that took a weekend to complete, but hey, whatev, it’s done. Which means the rest of the projects ‘on deck’ for that area can be tackled:

Like ditching that old berber for hardwood, into the bedrooms too. And replacing all the baseboards.I figure I have 2 years.