Exterior Door Makeovers And Week 7 Before The Reveal

Who knew that repainting the three exterior doors of our house would be so tedious and time-consuming?

I guess I did because I have avoided this part of our home exterior renovation for more than a year!

The reality is that changing out the style and look of an exterior door is more than applying another paint color.

As our exterior doors are exposed to rain, sleet, snow, sun, and heat, the paint’s texture will change. Every new layer of paint over the old builds up to a thick, tacky, yucky door.

Two of my doors, nearly 50 years old, had become beyond yucky.

That is why, for week 7 of the Spring One Room Challenge, I am focusing on the door makeovers!

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Three Exterior Door Makeovers – Let’s Start With the Easy One

All three of my exterior doors have a backstory.

The one at the back of the house for the newer Sunroom edition was installed in the summer of 2020 as a plain white door with a large glass insert. The white color was fine with me. In this room is a set of sliding glass doors, also in white. However, the siding on the Sunroom is more of a moody beige, so I’ll admit the white color stood out quite a bit.

When the foreman asked me if I wanted the doors painted, I agreed IF they could blend well with the siding. A few days later, this young worker showed up, probably no more than 18 or 19 years old. There was a good chance this was his first job, and he spoke very little English.

Less than an hour later, both he and I realized he had no clue how to paint the doors. He even had someone else show up who had trouble communicating with me, but he finally got him trained to use the paint sprayer.

Bless them both. He was such a nice kid, and he tried so hard, but we ended up with a sliding glass door frame with unpainted areas, like underneath the switch locks, and a back door where the white plastic trim around the window was covered and the nail holes filled with paint. By the next summer, the paint was peeling off the trim and was very badly damaged by our large German Shepherd as he scratched at the doors.

Since we were planning on more exterior renovations anyway, I knew the color of this door would eventually change. It was best to wait until after the puppy phase was long gone.

To update the Sunroom door required a day of sanding, slowly peeling the remaining paint off the plastic trim, and applying two layers of primer, then two layers of paint on both sides of the door.

FROGTAPE® IS THE OFFICIAL PAINTER’S TAPE OF THE ONE ROOM CHALLENGE®

So thankful to Frogtape for providing the perfect tape to protect both the door hardware and the newly cleaned plastic trim from any paint residue during the painting process.

All three exterior doors will be painted in the same color: Midsummer Gold by Behr Paint.

The Second Door Makeover Is My Favorite One Of All!

The second door required days of removing old, scratched-up paint (again, from the dog) and a bit of creative imagination to turn it into a Mid-Century-Inspired door.

Disclaimer: This door makeover was completed in the Fall of 2025, when I was given a promotional keyless door lock system in exchange for a video showcasing the installation and fall porch decor. However, this door has never been featured on my site or social media until now.

Both this door and the house’s front door are original to the house and custom sizes. We looked at purchasing a Mid-Century Modern-style door to replace it, but the cost was beyond our budget.

This is where the creative, outside-the-box idea comes into play.

I wanted this slim, 29-inch-wide door to have the classic stacked-square trim design found on many Mid-Century homes.

To see if my idea would work, I first created the design with tape on the door.

Then I went shopping online for picture frames to fit the design.

Yes, picture frames.

The Front Door Makeover Has Been The Hardest

Our front door is this beautifully carved vintage door. It is easily identifiable as the jewel on the front of the house. I have only seen the same door style in a historic hotel restaurant in downtown Sevierville. When we moved in, a previous owner had painted the door a deep red color over the original stain, which had faded to hints of purple in places.

I wanted a blue front door that I knew would blend much better with the light gray hardy boards original to the house. I was not wrong. Two coats of primer and two layers of deep blue paint drew attention and comments from all the neighbors.

That was 17 years ago. Not long after we moved in.

Remember that yucky and tacky description I gave about exterior doors. That is exactly how this door aged. Too many coats of paint and the weather had slowly faded the beautiful blue to a yucky mess.

The new moss green vinyl siding that we installed in 2025, made the door look much worse. I knew it would be beautiful again if painted in the same Mid-Summer Gold as the other two doors.

AFTER the seven or more layers of paint were removed, of course.

For more than a week, we have thrown everything we knew about paint removal at this door. Then we researched, tried another method, then researched again. We were willing to try anything to remove the layers of paint. Only to end up with frustrating results and ruined clothes.

• Heat gun
• Three different paint stripper products
• Five small wire bushes
• Three different sizes of scrapers
• Tiny little automotive hooks and picks (for the small crevices)
• Three different kinds of drill sander attachments
• Two boxes of disposable gloves
• Countless paper towels
• Several pieces of plastic wrap
• A ruined pair of shoes
• A stone floor that will need a special product to remove smeared paint spots

At the end of week seven, my jewel of a front door looks a bit beaten and worn.

The third paint stripper product finally removed more than one layer at a time. So even though the front door makeover is still ongoing, I am encouraged that this door will indeed be finished and stunning in its new color by the end of week 8 of the challenge.

Working towards Week 8!

Other posts in the 2026 Spring One Room Challenge:

Week 1, Week 2, Weeks 3 &4, Weeks 5&6