Should a Storm Door Match the Front Door Color?

Are you selling your home? Or maybe you're a homeowner looking to give your place a facelift? Speak to any real estate agent, and they'll tell you the home's exterior is what sells the property. Offering your residence more curb appeal is a surefire method of improving its value and aesthetic. So, should a storm door match the front door color?

Painting your property takes time and money, but it's worth the effort if you do it right. One of the many questions homeowners have about painting their property is should the storm door match the trim or door color? Both if possible.

Painting the storm door improves the look of the entrance to your home. The entrance is the first part of your property that guests, and potential buyers look at when they arrive at the residence. This post gives you a few design ideas to upgrade the look of your storm door, entrance, and home.

What Is a Storm Door?

The storm door acts as a second outer door homeowners install to provide protection from bad weather. If it's a warm summer day and there's a storm brewing on the horizon, the storm door prevents the wind, rain, leaves, and bugs from blowing through the house. It serves as a protective screen door alternative.

Storm doors usually feature a design with retractable or interchangeable screens and glass panels. The screen is good for the summertime, and the glass is the preferred choice for the winter. Like your front door, the storm door comes in a range of sizes and designs to suit the entrance to your home.

Storm doors feature construction with a tri-layer design, providing a back and front-end layer consisting of the interior insulation layer and the exterior skin. In terms of functionality, you can think of them as types of shutters for your doors instead of windows.

Can I Paint a Storm Door?

Sure, you can paint the storm door, it's a great idea. It's common for homeowners to paint their house every decade to keep it looking good or when they sell the property. Painting the storm door helps create a framing effect on the entrance, providing an additional visual dynamic.

However, you must have the right design idea and style when choosing the storm door color. Doing it wrong could have a counter-effect. The last thing you need is to detract from the home's aesthetic. Fortunately, if you follow the advice in this guide, you'll have an awesome painted finish to your storm door.

Matching the Storm Door to Your Front Door Color

The first option for painting the storm door is to match it to the front door. This isn't the most common option for the project, as homogeneous colors tend to overpower each other, creating a confusing look that's not visually appealing.

However, if you're the type of homeowner that doesn't like a" loud" front entrance and you find cross-matching colors to be overpowering, matching the colors isn't such a bad option. It's a "safe" option, and you don't have to worry about the complexities involved in cross-matching colors.

Matching the Storm Door to Your Home’s Trim Color

Most homeowners prefer a color-matching strategy where the house has a door color, primary siding color, and an accent trim or brickmold color complementing the shutters, windows, steps, and gutters. The trim color acts as a visual "framing" tool, enhancing and accentuating the rest of your home's elements.

Storm doors "frame" the front door, so it's a great choice for accentuating the front door and surrounding trim, bringing more visual appeal to the entrance. If your home has a porch, the contrasting color design matching your trim is a fantastic method for painting your storm door.

Frame the Storm Door & Avoid the Trim

The storm door provides a visual framing aesthetic to the home and the front door. Even if your home doesn't have a trim color, you can paint the storm door in another color to offset the general color of the exterior.

It's a louder way to paint your storm door and a good way to make it a focal point, drawing visitors' attention to the entrance of your home. It's a more artistic viewpoint of painting the storm door, but it's not for everybody's tastes.

You can take the artistic design a step further and blend several colors into the storm door frame to create a rugged appearance and aesthetic to the entrance. If you choose this option and live in a complex or estate, check with the HOA to see that they don't have any policy against multi-colored storm doors.

Do Storm Doors Come in Different Colors?

Storm doors are available in a range of colors from manufacturing brands, though mostly black or white. If you're buying a new one, you can choose painted finished, plastic or wood doors, and natural wood doors with light or dark stained finishes. You'll likely need to paint the storm door to match the front door or trim.

How to Paint Your Storm Door in 4 Steps

Should a storm door match the front door color? If not the door, then the trim, so get ready to paint. If you're buying a new storm door, choose one with an untreated wooden frame.

If that's the case, you can skip the first step in this process. If you already have a painted or treated wooden storm door, you'll need to complete step one before moving on with the rest of the paint job.

1) Sand & Prime the Storm Door Frame

If you have a storm door fitted to your home and what to change the color of the frame, start by sanding down to the bare wood. If your storm door has a sealant treatment covering raw wood, you'll also need to complete this step.

After sanding the door, you're ready to add a layer of primer paint to the door frame. You can choose from a spray paint primer or a brush-on types of primer paint. The spray paint option is a great choice, and you get an easy application with no brush bristles in the finish and a clean, streak-free look.

2) Select Your Paint Color & Type

Choose the paint color you want. If you go with spray paint, you have hundreds of color options. If you want a more traditional, longer-lasting paint, you can go with enamel or latex for the job.

These paints require painting on the door with a typical type of paint brush, but both provide years of service life. You also can hire a sprayer and compressor, using this equipment for spraying the storm door with a professional finish.

Metallic spray paint colors are also a popular option for homeowners, copper, gold, and silver colors are all great choices, or you can use them for accenting other colors like black and white.

3) Paint the Door & Allow it to Dry

After you have your paint and painting equipment ready to go, it's time to paint the door. Spray paint requires around four to five cans to finish the door properly, and you'll usually only need one coat with this paint.

Latex and enamels require around 2 liters of paint if you're using a sprayer and around three to four liters if you're painting it by hand. It's best to paint two coats when using latex or enamel for the job.

4) Refit the Door to the Doorframe

Wait for the paint to dry and fit the door back into the door frame. If this is a new door, you should call a professional handyperson to help you with the storm door installation.

Other Decorating Ideas for Storm Doors

Some new design trends for storm doors include adding a vinyl decal to the screen or glass. The design allows you to see out but makes it hard for people to see in. It's the same visual aesthetic as tinted windows.

You get a bevy of design options, from plain colors to prints with animals and other natural features like forests. However, you'll also need to check with the HOA to see if they allow this design idea on your storm door.

Can I Install Security Bars on a Storm Door?

Some storm doors have enhanced wooden frames that use design aesthetics to create a different look for the door. So, you might wonder if installing security bars on the storm door is possible.

However, that's usually not the case. The storm door has a lightweight frame and doesn't support much weight. Adding the weight of steel bars isn't going to work.

Can I Fit a Storm Door on the Inside?

If you don't like how a storm door looks on the exterior of your home, you can always have a handyman fit it to the interior. The doors will open from opposite sides of the door frame, but you can keep the benefits of the storm door without detracting from your home's exterior aesthetic.

It's only sometimes possible to install the storm door in that fashion. It depends on the setup of your entrance and the space you have in the hallway inside the home. Still, if your think it's something worth looking into, contact your local handyman and get their advice.

So, Should a Storm Door Match the Front Door Color?

Your storm door is a visual focal point for the entrance of your home. Painting the door is a great way to draw attention to your home and make it stand out from others on your street. Give your property more curb appeal and paint your storm door. So, should a storm door match the front door color? If not the door, then at least the trim color.

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