Our house is lakefront and had horrible, red barn looking vinyl siding that had faded to several different colors depending on which side of the house you were looking at. So the vinyl siding is gone, and LP Smart Siding is almost finished. Now we need to choose a paint color for the five exterior doors. We have decided to not replace the storm doors because of the heat that builds up between the glass and steel doors even with the screen part opened.

The garage doors, windows, and gutters are a khaki color which is why we chose the khaki color for the soffits and fascia. The room above the garage made a huge tall wall which needed something, so I asked the contractor to use a 12" wide band of siding to help break up that wall. So we have blue siding with khaki soffits/fascia, a belly band of almond, and rough, red cedar trim around windows and doors.

My questions:

1. Since the exterior steel doors get intense, afternoon, summer heat, should we use latex or oil based primer? Latex or oil based paint? Enamel? High gloss? Satin? Semi gloss?

2. I can't decide whether I want the door color to stand out or blend in. Since they are surrounded by cedar, they stand out anyway. So I am thinking of three colors that match the LP Smart siding: blue, khaki, or almond. i am leaning toward blue, but the almond color would fade less and last longer.

3. Should the door frame be the same color as the door?

The concrete wall under the siding of some of the pictures had previously been painted, but we are removing the paint and leaving it the natural color.

Thanks for any advice.