Black Interior Doors

I'm not the most "Pinteresty" person I know, but I do occasionally see an idea on Pinterest that I really want to try. The first time I saw on there that someone had painted their interior doors black, I thought, "They must be crazy." But then I saw it paired with white trim and I really liked the look of it. It made their hallway look rich and interesting. My friend at work had also recently painted her doors black and I loved how her doors looked. I told my husband I was thinking about painting all of the doors in the basement black and it took some convincing, but he eventually said yes! (after it was agreed upon that I would do all of the painting).

Here is a picture of our basement that was in the ad for our house when we bought it:

It's a wide-open space with no real divisions, except the poles!

Here are some pictures of how the paint and the doors looked:

Everything was one color: builder brown. The paint job was terrible when you got close to it! Tons of missed spots, roller marks, and the little hairs that the roller left behind. The trim was painted white, but the doors were straight from the manufacturer and had been primed but never painted. They were an ugly off-white. The doors to our office/guest room were french doors with no privacy. Whenever we had guests, it was a little awkward for them to be sleeping in a fish bowl where anyone could look straight in. The french doors and the trim around them were stained (very poorly) with a cherry wood stain. If it had been done well, it might have been nice looking. It had dripped all over the windows of the door and it was a huge mess. We decided to just switch the doors out for opaque doors.

Here is my lovely husband taking on that project:

Notice the cherry trim around the doors...very odd. Note: the guest bed in this picture was a temporary set up for a few weeks. We don't currently have a guest bed in the middle of our basement, but there is one in the guest room!

And so begins the painting of the doors. I saw several "pins" on Pinterest about the proper technique for doing this. Here is what worked best for me:

1. Paint the doors while they are hanging up, don't take them down.
2. I used Behr paint and primer in basic black with eggshell or satin finish. I can't remember which one, but ultimately, you just don't want something too glossy or too flat for a door.
3. The key is to use a foam roller when you're painting. Use a brush to get the cracks and then do the rest with a foam roller. There are pins you can look at on pinterest about the order of painting. I think it doesn't matter quite so much as long as you do the cracks first and then the rest.
4. I found that satin nickel hardware looked the best in our basement, but it's just personal preference.
5. I left my trim white because I didn't want to paint all of our baseboards black and I liked having the trim match my baseboards.

Here is a work in progress pic:

The paint will look almost navy blue as you're painting and then it looks horrible after just one coat. You will probably think to yourself, "I've made a terrible mistake." Don't worry, a second coat makes a world of difference!

I painted the door to the outside as well since it could be seen from the room. I did not paint the outside-side black.








The insides and outsides of the doors to the craft room and guest room are painted black. And I painted all of the trim white.











If you're thinking about doing this, it will look best if you do ALL of the doors. Including closet doors, and doors to the outside. I did both sides of all of my doors, except the door to the closet that goes under our stairwell.

Doors to the bathroom and to the "Christmas tree closet"

I was skeptical about painting bifold doors black, but it looks really good with the rest of the doors downstairs.

The view of the black door from inside the bathroom.

I was surprised at how quickly I became used to it. I knew I would have to paint all of the doors anyway and I'm happy with my choice to go with black. This is pretty time consuming/tiring (especially if you have a toddler and you're trying to paint during nap time!) I am very pleased with the results and our friends and family have been very complimentary.