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These 9 Rooms Make a Case for Artfully Painted Doors

From trompe l'oeil motifs to unexpected brights, they're sure to make a lasting impression.

October 13, 2023

While walls might get all the glory, doors can be as statement-making as they are functional when dressed up in unexpected hues, outlined in graphic fashion, or camouflaged behind trompe-l’oeil works of art. From bright ideas to bold moves, the examples in these pages will have you reaching for a paintbrush in no time.

PAUL COSTELLO

WELCOME NOTE

Tranquil blue (Benjamin Moore’s Pool Party) punctuates country house-casual white walls (and floors) in an upstate New York home for a colorful surprise that feels like a breath of fresh air.

  • MELANIE ACEVEDO

    DEEP IMPACT

    Nick Olsen’s masterful command of bold color is on full display in this Upper East Side apartment, where he tempered striking library walls (in Benjamin Moore’s Viking Yellow) with a door in more muted olive brown.

  • Andreas von Einsiedel

    NEO WHIMSICAL

    White doors become a painter’s canvas in this home, where early 20th-century Danish artist Michael Ancher painted wild bird portraits within the panels.

  • Thomas Loof/Trunk Archive

    WHITE OUT

    French designer Isabelle Stanislas took a brazen approach in a client’s uber- traditional wood-paneled office, painting the door and crown molding a contrasting shade of milky white.

  • MATTHIEU SALVAING

    ABSTRACT THOUGHTS

    Painter Mark Beard didn’t let a door get in the way of his vision for a striking Picasso-inspired mural in a New York apartment by architect Steven Harris and designer Lucien Rees Roberts—he simply continued painting across it.

  • MONICA SPEZIA/LIVING INSIDE

    BRIGHT TRACK

    Opposites attract in Sophie Wannenes’s Milanese gallery, where the designer paired art- fully embellished citron-yellow walls (SC227 by Ressource) and a go-for-broke shade of magenta (RSB13 Rosario by Ressource).

  • RITZ VON DER SCHULENBURG/TRUNK ARCHIVE

    HOLDING PATTERN

    A traditional stenciled motif seems anything but old-fashioned when deployed across doors, walls, ceilings, and even cabinets à la this London home by Mimmi O’Connell.

  • OBERTO GILI

    TROMPE ART

    Camouflaged by dramatically draped faux-painted curtains, a jib door plays hide and seek in a Tuscan home by Studio Peregalli.

  • SIMON WATSON/TRUNK ARCHIVE

    BORDER STATES

    Style icon Maria Agnelli transformed a wing of her 18th-century Italian estate into a children’s wonderland, countering the bold floral motif with graphic outlined millwork.


THIS STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 9 OF FREDERIC. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!