When visitors approach your home, they take in the whole scene with just one glance. For them, your entranceway and plantings form a single tableau. Keep that in mind when you select your paint color. . .and when you purchase your plantings. To create the best first impression of your home, the colors should work well together.
If you’re interested in creating a well-crafted look for your entranceway, it’s wise to start with a color wheel. You can find one on the Paint Quality Institute website at www.paintquality.com. Another one that is very helpful for planning purposes can be found at www.colorschemedesigner.com.
Assuming that your flowers are perennials, or if you’ve already planted this year’s annuals, one part of your color equation is already in place. All you have to do is decide what door color will complete the look of your entranceway.
One “can’t miss” combination involves high-contrast complementary colors, which sit directly across the color wheel from one another – for example, red and green, blue and orange, or yellow and violet. If most of the flowers in your front beds are red, a good color to paint your door would be a dark shade of green. Yellow flowers? A door painted blue-violet would work well.
Depending upon the color of the flowers in your beds, you might be able to create a more complex color scheme using a triadic palette, involving three colors that are equidistant from one another on the color wheel. As an example, if your flowers are blue and yellow, you could paint your front door a dark shade of red for a perfect triadic plan.
On the other hand, if your taste has a strong gravitational pull toward just one part of the color wheel, then you might want to go with an analogous color scheme, in which all of the colors are close cousins. Let’s say your flowers range from pinks and reds to fushia and magenta – a bright red door would complete the picture.
Of course, if you’re going to both overhaul your beds and paint this spring, the wheel is your oyster. There’s no limit to what you can do as you create your color scheme from scratch. If that describes your situation, spend time with the color wheel, see which color combinations appeal to you, then decide which color to paint the door, and which to use in your beds.
But don’t forget: Spring and summer won’t last forever, nor will your flowers. Plan for the day when the petals drop by selecting a front door color that will also look good in the off-season. That way, your front entrance will make a great first impression year ‘round!
