Selecting a New Front Door Color

Since the balance of the house colors are historic and original to the early 1900s time period, the front door provides an area where I can have a little fun with color.

During the pandemic and with limited access to paint stores, I found this great tool online to help narrow down your paint color choices. ColorSnap by Sherwin Williams allows you to upload a photo of your space (for me, the front door) into this paint color selecting technology. You can really upload any picture of your home and use this tool on your computer.

Using the "paintbrush" icon, you select the area you want painted. In this picture I am using the square tool to fill in the front door space. Once you have indicated the appropriate area, then, with just a click of your mouse, you can "apply" different paint colors. You can load up to 8 different colors at a time.

I experimented with various colors~~black, forest green, sage, reds, oranges and shades of blue, trying to determine what color categories I prefer.

Once I narrowed down a few paint color choices, I called the store and placed my order for sample sizes. With curbside pick up, the process was easy.

I applied sections of the front door with the color samples. And quite honestly, I wasn't fond of any of them. Part of the challenge of selecting colors online, is that how they appear on the computer screen may be different in real life. For example, the orange in the picture above, looked darker and more paprika colored on my desktop.

The good news is that after stepping back and looking at the samples, I was drawn to the blue tones more than the others. So at least, the color choice was narrowed down. Now to find the right blue.

Using a Pottery Barn pillow fabric as inspiration, I decided on a grayish blue called Drizzle, utilizing my old Sherwin Williams paint fan deck.

Once the paint color was on the door, it was slightly different than the paint chip. It is more robin's egg blue than a grayish blue. However, I painted the whole door with this color.

After living with it for a few weeks, I am happy with this color choice. The front door is a fresh, welcoming color now! I can honestly say it was fun to use the ColorSnap technology. Selecting a paint color is such a visual process, and doing it on your computer may save you time and money, before you determine your final color choice.