Last weekend I finally got around to painting our front door. For those of you who have seen my old apartment, this won’t seem that new or exciting. I used the same picture frame and the same leftover can of paint from my old place. Ever since I moved to NYC, I’ve been completely obsessed with the glossy black front doors on many buildings, restaurants, and brownstones in the city. I love the old world vibe and the manly, dignified feeling that they convey. Click below to read more about my process!
The framed peep hole idea came from a different source of inspiration. I actually got the idea by watching the TV show Friends. On the show, Monica’s apartment had a picture frame around her peep hole. I loved the idea of dressing up such a utilitarian thing while distracting from it at the same time. While Monica’s door is purple and whimsical, I chose to keep mine more classic and baroque, maintaining that old NYC look.
Here’s a screen shot of the framed peep hole on “Friends”
So here’s how I did it. The first step was to paint the box that houses both the peep hole and the door bell. It was originally painted with a retro avocado green colored enamel. I decided that it should be black to match the rest of what the door would become.
I bought a spray primer that would work on metallic surfaces and glossy black spray enamel from my local hardware store. I then prepped the surface by cleaning with soap and water then drying.
After masking around the box, I sprayed an even coat of primer and gave it about an hour to dry. Then I lightly sanded with very fine sandpaper and sprayed on one more coat which I also sanded upon drying. Its important to wipe off any dust from sanding so that you don’t get lumps under your next coat of paint.
Primer
Once the primer was dry I started spraying on coats of spray enamel, also allowing an hour to dry between coats. If any lumps appeared from dust or an uneven glob of paint, I’d sand that off in the same way I did with the primer. I think I did a total of three or four thin coats until I was satisfied with the coverage. NOTE: Do not sand the last coat, you want that to be nice and glossy.
several thin coats of glossy black enamel
After wards, I removed the tape and paper I used to mask off the peep hole box. As you can see, there was a bit of over spray. Normally I would have created a spray box to contain the over spray, but since I was planning to paint the door anyway, I figured it didn’t matter.
The easy part was painting the door. I just used two coats of a can of glossy black Behr house paint with primer. In my old apartment, I painted the molding black, but this time I decided to leave it white to match the neighboring coat closet.
Once the paint had dried sufficiently I hung the picture frame. I opted to use 3m command picture hanging strips since the door is made out of metal and would be too much effort to nail or drill holes.
So here are more pics of the final result!! One added bonus of having a contrasting color for the door is that people will no longer get confused and try to exit through the coat closet (Its happened to guests a couple times already!).
this pic is blurry, oops!!
