Do You Paint Doors to Match the Wall?

The interior and exterior colors of the home are mostly a matter of personal preference; if that weren’t true, painting wouldn’t be much fun. Nevertheless, color-matching guidelines can help you maintain congruity and a sense of harmony, which, in accordance with feng shui, helps you maintain a positive and healthy outlook. Painting doors to match the walls doesn’t violate these guidelines, but it doesn’t always further them. Design door and scheme placement are also important considerations.

Highlights and Contrast

Interior designers traditionally consider the doorway as a portion of the interior trim, which comprises the baseboards and door and window casings. It is uncommon to paint trim the exact same color as the walls, although the monochromatic effect this creates may complement oversized windows or a fireplace that is dominant. Designers more commonly use trim to highlight the wall colors by painting them a different color, and they often choose a color for the door that either matches the complements or trim it. In a bold color scheme, the doorway may also offer comparison. A red door in a room with light green walls and forest green trim is a good illustration of such a bold contrast.

Feng Shui and Direction

In feng shui, the doorway specifies the northern direction at a room, and the colours for north are black and blue. The true geographic direction that the door faces can also be important. Depending on the nature of the room, it might be more advantageous to highlight one over another. As an example, red highlights the natural fire element of a south-facing door, but if the room has a fireplace in the wall opposite the doorway, a blue door specifies the fireplace wall as south, which can be an appropriate placement for a fireplace. On the flip side, in a room with several defining characteristics, painting the south-facing doorway crimson reinforces real geographic orientation and is probably more suitable.

Matching Colors

If you’ve got a room full of interesting furniture or expressive paintings, you might not need much definition in the door and wall colours. If so, you might choose to paint the doors the identical color as the walls. The paint you use for doorways typically has a different sheen than wall paint, which difference could be more than enough to distinguish the doorway and make it stand out. If the door opens to the room, then you usually paint the edge the identical color as that side of the doorway. Do not forget to pay attention to the option of color on the other side of the doorway, as it is visible when the door is open.

Exterior Door Colors

Whereas it isn’t unusual to paint an interior door the identical color as the walls, the exact same isn’t true for exterior doors. In feng shui terms, an exterior door — especially the major entrance door — is a gateway for chi, or energy, to enter your home. It should harmonize not just with the color of the walls, but also the surroundings and the direction the doorway faces so as to draw the sort of energy you want. For example, green is the natural color for east and highlights the wood element. If the home is already predominantly green, however, or tons of trees are around the home, you may pick another color, such as blue, white or red, to bring in the element that color signifies.

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