I can always count on my Instagram audience for the best recommendations for pretty much anything. When I crowdsourced for the best black paint colors for our front door, you all delivered!

Here are the most popular recommendations for best black paint colors from all of YOU (bold = most recommended):

Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black (this is the one we went with!)

Sherwin Williams Iron Ore

Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron

Sherwin Williams Caviar

Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze

Sherwin Williams Greenblack

Sherwin Williams Black Magic

Behr Cracked Peppercorn

Behr Broadway

Farrow & Ball Railings

Farrow & Ball Off Black

Farrow & Ball Blue Black

Benjamin Moore Black

Benjamin Moore Onyx

Benjamin Moore Universal Black

Benjamin Moore Beret

Benjamin Moore Blackboard

Benjamin Moore Black Top

Benjamin Moore Kendall Charcoal

Benjamin Moore Soot

Benjamin Moore Black Beauty

A few of you recommended using Alkyd paint. I had to look up what that was, so for those of you who also don’t know, here’s the deal: Alkyd paint is very resistant to damage. Therefore, many people use them in high traffic areas of their homes such as hallways. The resin binder is also resistant to moisture; therefore, it is a good paint for use in the kitchen or bathroom. People with children often like alkyd paints in areas where the children will be playing. Latex paint isn’t quite as durable as many types of alkyd paint. Furthermore, alkyd paint retains its sheen for much longer than other types of paint. If you want to paint an area without as much preparation or without stripping the old paint, alkyd paint is your best option.

A few other recommendations for specific types of paint for a door in a high traffic space:

Benjamin Moore Aura paint in satin finish

Amy Howard One Step Paint

Sherwin Williams Emerald Line (this is what we went with!)

Our Method

For paint, we went with Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black. We used their Emerald Interior Acrylic Latex Paint in a satin finish. We chose this particular type of paint because it is washable and durable and is a paint and primer in one with advanced stain blocking technology. All we needed was a quart of paint and that allowed us to do two coats plus we have some leftover.

We started by doing some light sanding of the door. We were just aiming to “rough up” the wood a bit to help the paint adhere better (thanks to the advice from my far more capable and amazing neighbor!). We then used a tack cloth to wipe off sanding residue, then got started painting!

We used a mini roller with a 1/2″ nap. In hindsight I think the 1/4″ nap might have been better, but this worked fine. We used an angle brush to do the edges and decided not to tape anything off except the lock and handle. We have been using this method (angle brush instead of taping) for the last few painting projects we’ve done thanks to the advice from Chris Loves Julie and it saves so much time and because we honestly suck at taping it actually looks better, too!

Apparently it’s really important which sections of a door you paint first, so we trusted all the posts we saw on the internet and followed this order of painting. One thing to note is when painting the edges of your door you really need to be able to have the door open for many hours so the paint can dry, otherwise it will just stick and get messy. Because it’s the middle of winter we decided we will just do the edges in the spring when the weather warms up. You can totally tell and it looks like garbage when you look up close, but nobody comes over to our house/to our door aside from my mom and sister so we really aren’t too worried about it!

We chose not to tape around each window and instead we used a scraper at the very end once paint was dried to scrape off any paint that got on the window and it worked like a charm and was much easier and less time consuming than taping it all out!

Painting the first coat took just about 2.5 hours and the second coat was about 1.5. We are SO happy with the results! All-in this transformation costed us less than $40 and 4 hours of time — totally worth it.

Any questions — use the comment box below! Not experts, but happy to share our experience!