Red Door, Blue Door, Front Door, Screen Door

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It's been mentioned in past posts (here and here) that I have major problems making a decision on paint colors. Let's call it paint paralysis. Well I'm suffering from it yet again. Thanks to Kat over at Maple Leaves & Sycamore Trees, I've got the front door painting bug. BUT, yet again, I'm struggling to pick a paint color. And instead of the normal problem of trying to decide between 8 different shades of green, this time I'm having trouble narrowing it down from... um... every color.

Mostly I blame the current problem on the previous owners and their paint choice. Truthfully I've always drooled over those pictures of cute cape cod houses with grey cedar shingle siding - and I got halfway there with our first house... kind of.  It's a cute little cape cod and it has grey-blue siding... let's stop there. 

That grey-blue siding is my current hold-up. I wish it were more grey. Or more blue. Or darker. Or... just something... more.  Instead it's caught between grey and blue and it's restricting the creative side of my brain from choosing a color for our completely bland front door. 

So - that's why I'm here. Begging for your opinion.  Please.Help.Me.  

Here's the current, bland look for comparison.

Current look. I should note that we do plan on painting both that screen door and the front door
behind it the same color.

Last night I decided to try out some different colors on the door to see if that helped narrow it down. I don't have any fancy editing software, so I did these in good 'ol powerpoint.

My first thought was red. It's all the rave right now, so I stuck this cranberry color up to see what it might look like.

Red Door

Not bad, right? I could totally work with that. Doesn't it look warm and inviting?! Maybe I'm biased because we're heading into fall and I'm craving fall colors? Would I still like it in the summer?

Next up - blue. I figured maybe it would help pull the siding into that "more blue" territory.

Blue Door

I give it the "ok" stamp of "meh"-ness. It just seems a little dark with the black shutters. And I did try to lighten it, but the more blue it got the less it worked. And it's just A LOT of blue.  See that retention wall on the right? That's also the same grey-blue. Oh - and so is the garage.  Lovely, right?

Next up - yellow. I do love a bright, sunny, happy yellow (like the guest room!), so I figured we should give that a try too...

Yellow Door

Definitely liking the yellow (though we've already established I'm biased)! However, I'm a little afraid that the black shutters and yellow door is entering bumblebee territory...

But at this point something else was bothering me... I still don't know what exactly, but I thought maybe breaking up the front a little might help, so next I drew in some flower boxes to give that look a try...

Yellow Door + Flower Boxes?

With a bunch of brightly colored flowers this would look ok, right? I'm still a little weary of the bumblebee look though...

So my next thought was maybe it's the shutters that are bugging me. So what would happen if we painted those too?

Back to the cranberry...

Red door + Red shutters + window boxes?

What do you think? I still don't hate it, but I'm just not sure if it's clashing with the siding?


And back to blue... I even tried lightening the door a bit.

Blue Door + Blue Shutters + White Shutters?

I'm still in the "meh" category for me.

GAH! Why is this so difficult?!

Oh - and one more thing to consider... this fall we have had the front door open almost all of the time while we're home. It's been too nice lately to not let the air in from the screen door, so I also need to make sure that the door color doesn't clash with the interior of the house when it's open.

Your turn! What do you think? Will one of these work? I'm opening to suggestions too - though, it should be noted, that J has vetoed any oranges or purples!

UPDATE: Votes have been tallied, and the door has been painted! See here.