One of the easiest ways to freshen up the look of your home is to change the paint color of your front door or entranceway. Prep and painting can often be accomplished in just a couple of hours, less time than it takes to plant your flower beds.
But what color to paint your door? Debbie Zimmer, spokesperson for the Paint Quality Institute, suggests that you let your petals be your guide.
"When visitors approach your home, they view the entranceway and plantings together, so their colors should be coordinated," says Zimmer. "Keep that in mind when you select your paint color ... and when you purchase your plantings."
If you're interested in creating a well-crafted look for your entranceway, it's wise to start with a color wheel.
Assuming that your flowers are perennials, or if you've already planted this year's annuals, one part of your color equation is already in place. All you have to do is decide what door color will complete the look of your entranceway.
One "can't miss" combination involves high-contrast complementary colors, which sit directly across the color wheel from each other - for example, red and green, blue and orange, or yellow and violet. If most of the flowers in your front beds are red, a good color to paint your door would be dark green. Yellow flowers? A door painted blue-violet would work well.
Depending upon your flower colors, you might be able to create a more complex color scheme using a triadic palette, involving three colors that are equidistant from one another on the color wheel. As an example, if your flowers are blue and yellow, you could paint your front door a dark shade of red for a perfect triadic plan.
On the other hand, if your taste gravitates toward just one part of the color wheel, then you might favor an analogous color scheme, in which all of the colors are close cousins. Let's say your flowers are pink, red, and magenta - a bright red front door would complete the picture.
Of course, if you're going to both overhaul your beds and paint this spring, there are no limits on your color scheme. Spend time with the color wheel, see which color combinations appeal to you, then decide which color to paint the door, and which to use in your beds.
One final thought: "Spring and summer won't last forever, nor will your flowers. Plan for the day when the petals drop by selecting a front door color that will also look good in the off-season," advises Zimmer. "That way, your front entrance will make a great first impression year 'round!"
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