How to Copper Your Front Door

By Elle
I’ve been waiting two years to paint my front door, and, for a change, I’m glad I didn’t get around to it right away.  I’d settled on painting it cinnamon with olive trim, but then I discovered a paint kit that would give the door an aged copper look.  Oh yeah.

It was impossible to paint the door in just one day; the primer alone took 12 hours to dry. So that the paint can set, the outdoor temperature must be above 55 degrees, and luckily our mild winter weather gave us several perfect days to complete the job.  Gimme a fist bump, El Nino!

Take a look at the photos below, and read how we did it.

Front door, before. We felt the black shutters, not to mention the carriage lights, dated the house, landing it right back in 1972. (Ignore the wretched “landscaping;” we’ve improved it by leaps and bounds since this photo was taken.)

Burgundy door — yuck! If you try this technique, we recommend taking the door off the hinges and laying it flat. We didn’t do that, and the entire process took us four tries. Obviously, it was on the fourth try that we took the door off the hinges…. And remember to tape the windows!

Woo hoo! Black shutters: gone! Carriage lights: Nearly gone!

After we primed the door, we applied the reactive metallic paint in copper. While the paint was still wet, we sprayed it with the green patina solution, which speeds the natural aging process, and used a combination of brush strokes, finger strokes and sponge dabs to get the effect we wanted. Cost of the paint kit: about $80. Not finished yet! We still needed to stain the threshold and paint the trim around the door.

 

Love that verde patina!

We may apply the same verde copper finish to the tops of the lights. Cost of Allen + Roth Lindbergh lights: about $100, on clearance.

Amazingly, we found a combo lockset with a copper finish from Home Depot, online. (Don’t bother stealing it, man, it ain’t real.) Cost of hardware: about $40.

This technique totally brightens the front of the house.

With the threshold stained, trim painted a reddish-brown and doorbell “copperized,” the door looks finished. Love. This. Door!

Finally, we added some decorations for the holidays.

Happy winter, everyone.

Have a peaceful, happy and healthy 2016.