I love brightly colored front doors. The first thing my Mom did when she bought her house when I was a teenager was paint the door of her brown house a bright purple. It looked fantastic in the grey Seattle weather.

I don't know that it's so much a design dare for most of us as it is against many folks HOA rules. I know my front door can only be a particular color of wood stain and I get snotty letters whenever the gloss has faded.

If I could only do this to my condo/apartment door...
:)

I would love to, but the exterior of my house is brick (earth tones & red) and the interior is mostly pale greys & blues, and I can't decide on any bright color that would look good with both.

My husband and I will be buying a home soon. One of the things I daydream about the most is what color to paint the front door. Royal blue? Kelly green? Bright yellow? So many possibilities!

I really want to do this. A few years back, I always found myself admiring red doors. That electric yellow is divine! And I'm also thinking about royal blue.

I'd love to do hot pink, but I think I'd have a hard time convincing the rest of the household.

My two issues are that we have an ancient door with a large leaded glass window in it, and that we have a storm door in front of it. The antique door desperately needs paint or a refinish, but I'm wary. How do I work with the clutter of a storm door and the open space of the window?

spossberg> I live in the north of France, where red brick walls are very common, and some poeple paint their door shiny dark blue. I love it ! If you have a wooden door, you can have two different colors on the outside and on the inside.

I'm unfortunate enough to be moving into a house that was renovated. The bricks are from the 80's and have that awful mustard color. It's just impossible to imagine a color to go with it. I may be so bold as to choose a shiny black, but there's nothing more to do (fortunately, the interior is lovely, but boy, the outside is ugly).

I definitely would! Too bad it's a condo and they all have to look alike. When I have a house though I will!

Let's face it, here in the US anyway, we are so conservative in so many ways that most people don't want to try new ideas out or go on a dare and paint their door some bright color and that's why I don't like living in gated communities or communities where you have covenances and such dictating how you must keep up your home and yard to a certain specification.

I like to live in older neighborhoods or in the city preferably where to a large extent you CAN do things to your liking, within reason mind you and I don't care about resale value, that's so much last year or 2007 when people were so worried about ensuring their homes kept their values so they can sell them at a profit in a couple of years.

Why decorate when we are told to neutalize the home so it can sell to buyers in the first place? Are we a nation of dolts who can't see beyond paint color to see how the potential candidate will work in their lives?

I love the look of a glossy lipstick red front door on a Cape Cod or Colonial - and I love the yellow door in the photo above. However, my home still has its original 1920's stained wood front door, so I wouldn't want to paint it. Kudos to those who do!

When we bought our limestone house, I couldn't wait to paint the front door orange. I wanted a rich color like a carrot and not cartoon orange. After picking out the color and painting the door, our neighbors all stared (they have woodstain or white doors) but I recently a plum door appeared in the row! Finally, personality.

ciddyguy - bravo! But I must say, unfortunately many people can't see beyond a bright purple paint job or the likes. But I still say . .. COLOR YOUR LIFE! It's NOT hard to re-paint if you've decided to sell/move/etc.

Having family in Europe, it's so wonderful to visit and see the many (sometimes overwhelming) choices of color that my family members have used in their homes. I love it! I've done the same in my house (reds, chocolates, bright blue, avocado green, etc) . . . it flows nicely, it's bright and airy and FUN.

If I owned the house, I would absolutely paint the front door some bright, shiny, welcoming color. My faves right now are bright orange and lime green.

I love the pic too!!!

Our door is almost exactly that shade of yellow. It's so cheerful to come home to. Too bad we live in a ranch house with the entrance off to the side, so the door isn't really visible from the street.

You can thank my HOA for the dull beige color of my front door.

/\/\ Ditto Ciddyguy

Me too kelleyk. Darn HOAs.

My front door is a yellow very close to the door in the photo above. It looks awesome. The best compliment I got was a friend who commented that it "looks like something you'd see in Holland". Fair enough!

I'm not in any position to paint my front door (renting) but I've been torn between going with something bright like a red or a yellow or going the other way and doing a slick, glossy black.

I posted this story here before, so I'll keep it short. I moved into a house with an aqua green front door. I liked it, but my husband didn't. When we upgraded the door I went with a slate blue. Then the neighbors immediately appeared, telling me how much they had hated the aqua door and loved the change back to something more "normal". I despair that so much of America is populated by people so utterly fearful of anything deviating from the norm, so that even a colorful door becomes a contentious issue. Screw it, my next place I'm going bold!

As long as you don't rent or live in a condo / co-op complex, I say go bold if you want! Our home (in the burbs) has many traditional features, including 4 white doric columns and white siding. Becuase of that, it likely would look ridiculous to get a bright door. But oh how I pine for a slick cherry red door! Maybe if I change a few things structurally, it will finally work.

Couldn't care less what my neighbors think. I dislike most of their design styles anyway! (often flashy, trying to show off...)

when i am a homeowner, my door will be a luscious kelly green as a nod to my fiancees irish heritage. in the old days in dublin, where there are a lot of identical rowhouses, the wives used to paint their front doors bright colors, so when their husbands came home weary from work, they'd know which house is theirs. intentional personality. i love it.

we have a nice stained wood door that my husband would faint if i painted it. but i love the look of bright doors. i am trying to find bolder colors to decorate with inside. i'm in real estate and hate the "builder beige" look. I like homes that show some personality.

I painted mine hot pink last month and I love it!!!

The exterior of my condo complex is Vista brand Mesquite, a drab, olivey tan. My Irvine, CA HOA forbids anything outside the lines, so I painted the interior of my front door high gloss Behr brand Koi, a dark orange red. It's glorious!

Someday, I'll move far, far away from the the nasty HOA and paint the outside of my door any color I please.

And I'll leave my bicycle on porch if I want to.

We live in a town home in the burbs with an HOA, but it is the lamest HOA ever so we can get away with a brightly painted door. Plus we are an end unit so our door is on the side of our house, so it would take them a bit to notice anyhow. We usually do whatever we want and then point out all the eyesores around us that haven't been taken care of in years when they send us the snooty letter about making an improvement to our own home.

We painted our front door bright turquoise. I love it against our sandstone brick house--I just didn't anticipate the interior glow of the morning sun in our east-facing living room. We're thinking of repainting to a more mellow purple.