Pamela's Bed & Breakfast Blog

Banish Those Dreary Winter Days by Painting Your Door Inn Style

Sometimes at the end of a long cold winter, one of the best ways to let in a breath of fresh spring air is with a quick pick-me-up right at the front entrance to your home. I learned this from visiting many bed and breakfasts over the years. Whether it is a delightful pot of fresh spring bulbs sitting on your front step in an elegant stone planter, a colorful wreath to celebrate Mardi Gras or St Patrick’s Day, or for a more long lasting effect, welcome visitors to your door by painting it a wonderful new color with a high gloss easy care paint. We have all seen those wonderful doors welcoming us in cherry red and bottle green when we enter a bed and breakfast. Indeed such a color will brighten up the appearance of your entire home, maybe even your entire road and banish from view piles of wet snow, grey limbs or a brown lawn (this is something you’ll start noticing more and more at bed and breakfasts). However, there are some other color combinations that I think work beautifully on doors as well. Amongst them, you can try deeper shades of red such as cinnabar, evoking a Chinese lacquer box look, or Moroccan red, warm and earthy like a top quality paprika. Also one way to draw people like bees to a flower is a rich tulip red. Maybe your house is grey and white and just calling out for a lighter toned punch of pizzazz. In that case, a warm or lemony yellow would do the trick perfectly! Check out interesting new colors like sunburst, beeswax, daffodil, all of which look extra sharp in a home with a charcoal trim. In many Italianate homes and resort bed and breakfasts the world over, you might very well be welcomed by a beautiful turquoise blue. While on a silvery shingled home, an inky dark blue reminiscent of the late evening sky would look very rich. Greens have long been a favorite for bed and breakfast front doors, whether the ubiquitous bottle green, or something a little more contemporary, perhaps a deep dark blue green or teal or a subtler olive or a soft wet moss. The beauty of changing your door color is that it changes the whole outward appearance of your home and can be done in minimal expense and completed in just a few hours. If you are feeling like adding more, why not flank the door with some brass sconces and then center it with a big brass door knocker and emphasize the structural element by adding a brass kick plate. Wow, what a difference! You’ll be welcoming new and impressed guests into your home in no time at all, giving our bed and breakfasts a run for their money!

Pamela