Good Questions: What Color To Paint the Doors When Walls Are White?

Hello AT,

After repainting our apartment, my wife and I are trying to figure out what color to paint our interior doors (the doorknobs are going to be stainless steel). The obvious answer is white, but this isn’t going to work. The doors are currently white, so are the walls... and since there’s no way to get them to match perfectly, one will always look "dirty" or "off-white" which is something I’d like to avoid...

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She (my wife) suggested a dark blue, I’m thinking a darker shade of gray. A seemingly simple problem is starting to turn into something that’s just eating up way too much of my time, I need input from a 3rd party. Help please!

Thanks, Pete

Dear Pete,

First of all, you can absolutely do white doors with white walls, and you could choose either the same color in semi-gloss to switch it to a "trim finish" or you could go with an off-white that is a bit cooler like China White.

However, keep this in mind: your doors are really connected to your walls and are the extension of that plane, so we would encourage you to think of keeping them pretty close in color.

If you want to do a color, choose either a warm color (greys can be warm) or a cool color (blues) to match the rest of your room.

Stainless steel is generally a cool finish, so cool colors would go well with this. Greys of any kind should as well.

Our advice would be NOT to go too dark, but to find an off-white that has a color in it that you really like, test it first and then try it on one door before doing the whole place.

Anyone else?

Comments (10)

Just realize that anything significantly different from white will make the door really jump out visually (not necessarily bad). Other than that I think anything could work depending on what else you have going on in the room(s).

Also remember that you dont want to go so subtle as to have it look like a mistake. I'm a big fan of dove grey, or a warm tan.

a warm blue-toned gray would be lovelove especially w/ the stainless and white walls. it's simple and purdy.

I will go against Maxwell on this one, and say glossy black or a real dark navy. I just painted my entrance door a glossy black, and it's absolutely amazing... I don't think you can go wrong with it. Dark colors will also hide imperfections, steel dorrknobs will look very stylish, and you can do whatever color you like with other decorative items. Black doors/white walls will be the perfect background...

What about just painting the frames? I've seen some nice apartments where the doorframe is painted a contrast colour. Then the 2 whites arent directly side by side...

I suggest you check out the apartment of Nate Berkus at Oprah.com. He painted his doors a glossy dark blue, it looks great and he even has a tiny apartment! Here's the link http://www.oprah.com/presents/oathome/200703/spaces/spaces_105.jhtml

If you want to paint the doors a color or even dark, do it, but leave the molding the same color (but gloss) of the wall color.

If dark, I vote for something really "muddy" (in a good way)... the color of wet cement, for example.

But if you have a lot of doors in close proximity, you may end up with "house of doors", so perhaps consider painting main circulation doors a color, but leave utilitarian-space doors something close to the wall color.

I'll second leaving the molding the same color as the wall - I've actually seen a house with white walls and glossy black doors. It looked great and the moldings were white.

Lisa from VA, Berkus actually painted them very glossy black. And yes, they came out amazing!

Thomas O'Brien is also a fan of painting doors dark, leaving moldings wall-related. If not mistaken, in his country house, the doors were a satiny (almost matte) almost-black charcoal.

But there was *considerable* space between doors...