If you thought you were getting a juicy discussion on Hollywood’s best lifts and enhancements, I’m truly sorry to disappoint.  This topic is not nearly as scintillating. 

I’m talking about closet doors.  Those standard white doors installed by contractors in every house built in America in the last 15 years.  (That is, unless you can afford those upgraded wood or custom doors that we drool over in glossy décor magazines.) 

As you regular readers know, I am in the process of remodeling my home office.  I have ignored this space for years, but no more ! I’m starting from scratch this time.  A blank canvas.  I realized that before I could hang my gorgeous grasscloth wallpaper (in the most amazing slightly luminescent gray blue, oh joy!), I had to touch up some trim.  And I had to paint the closet doors.  The paint was dingy – yellowed from years of sunlight – and they are the first thing you notice when you walk in my home office.  No. Thank. You. 

Instead of just painting them white, I thought I’d give them a bit of interest and a hint more sophistication.  After all, they practically take up the entire wall, so why not embellish? 

Here’s a look at mine, post paint job:

Do you want to see the wall of doors before?  With the mess behind and in front?  Well do ya?  OK, fine – your wish is granted.  Here is the room before, from a few months ago.  Sad, I know. 

And After:

Do you like how I added the detail on the door so that it picks up the detail on my revamped ‘Cinderella’ office chair?  This chair is the only piece from the previous room that is staying. 

It was an easy fix.  I worked with the existing architecture of the door, and taped it off with painter’s tape.  Then I mixed some color from my existing trim and wall paint.  The wall color is ‘Seafoam Storm’ by Valspar, and the trim is ‘Swiss Coffee’’.  For my inside panel, I mixed 50% of the very translucent Pratt and Lambert ‘Opulence Silver’ with 40% ‘Swiss Coffee’ and 10% ‘Seafoam Storm’. 

I added a bit less of the ‘Seafoam Storm’ to mix the color for the surround.  Two coats later, I had a tone-on-tone painted panel door. 

I found these wood appliqués at Lowes that mimic the detail on my office chair.  I primed and painted them, and then glued them to the doors. 

Layer one is complete.  Now on to hanging the wallpaper, finding the perfect chandelier, refinishing the desk, painting the cabinets, organizing the storage accessories, the list goes on.  Whew, I’m tired.  I need to rest. 

But speaking of closet doors, when I was doing research on upgrading my own doors, looking for design inspiration, I Googled “painted closet door” and “wallpapered closet door”.   Strangely, there was not a lot of good images out there to look at.   I didn’t find much at my favorite go-to design and DIY sites either.  But I did find some other embellished closet doors out there in cyberspace.  Are they good or bad?  I’ll let you be the judge.

From HGTV.  Love these. 

Bulletin board doors from Domino

Painted Doors by Painter Girl 

Wrapping paper door from Grace at Design Sponge

Simple paint and molding from Better Homes & Gardens

Painted doors from Chez Larsson

Patchwork wallpapered door from Posie Gets Cozy

Map door from Better Homes and Gardens

Cherry Tree decals from Design Amour

Chicken wire and fabric from Country Living

Chalkboard door from Country Living

Painted and embellished door by Centsational Girl

Have you done something special with a door?  Do tell. 

Don’t forget, there’s still time to enter the Tim Irving art photography giveaway – it ends Friday at 11 p.m. PST.

Tags: brush paint, closet door, painted

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at and is filed under Before & After, Decorating, Works in Progress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.