How to Avoid Security Concerns When Painting Your Front Door

MILLBRAE — Painting your front door may seem like a simple task, but it can get surprisingly complicated. One complicating factor is the fact that you have to remain at home until the paint is completely dry, as you won’t have a functioning door to ensure security in your absence. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to work around this issue.

Before painting your front door, you’ll typically remove the doorknob. You don’t have to do this—you could just brush around it, but you’ll have a difficult time achieving the appearance of a consistent, vertical brush stroke. The problem is that removing your doorknob brings a security concern, particularly if you need to leave your home at any point before the paint is dry. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this issue. After painting, use a hairdryer to target the area of the door where the knob goes. Within 20 minutes or so, it should be dry enough to re-install the knob.

However, even if your door has a functional lock, you’ll still have a security issue if you can’t close it. New paint takes a long time to fully dry—even when it’s dry to the touch, it can still have a stickiness to it, and if you close the door prematurely, the paint around the edges can get ruined. If you need to leave your house before your door is fully dry, use this simple trick: rub Vaseline® along the edges of the door frame and weather stripping. When you close the door, this will keep the paint from sticking to these areas.