Painting Internal Doors

Whether you're moving in to a new home and are keen to put your own stamp on things, or are just giving your current home a little TLC with a fresh lick of paint, painting your internal doors can be the way to go. Cleaning up your doors and covering over those grubby fingerprints, scratches, chips or faded areas can perk up your room quickly and in a cost-effective manner.

What Paint is Best for Internal Doors?

Interior doors go through a lot with day to day life, therefore you need a suitable paint for internal doors that will last through all of the abuse. Semi-gloss or gloss makes cleaning far easier than matte paint, it will hold up much better when being cleaned frequently too. Matte paint generally holds dirt and is quite difficult to clean, cleaning could also remove the finish of the paint. Therefore, when painting something like doors, because they do get rather dirty and are used a lot, as well as needing to be cleaned often, semi-gloss or gloss paint will work better. If the current finish of the door is a glossy paint, you’ll need to use a de-glosser to dull the finish off the door before repainting with your new paint. You can now find that some popular brands will do a ‘quick dry interior’ paint which would be great to use on doors, just be sure to check the finish of the paint.

How to Paint Your Internal Doors

Before painting your door, you need to decide if you’re going to leave it on the frame, or if you’re going to take it off and then put it back on. If you are going to take it off the frame, you’ll need to lay it flat when painting, we suggest using a few sawhorses to rest the door on. Before putting the sawhorses up and placing the door on them, make sure some old sheets or newspaper is down. For a smooth finish, remove all of the hinges, knobs and anything else you don’t want to get paint on, if you don’t want to take these things off, use some masking tape to cover it up. If you’re doing this, make sure to press the tape down properly so the paint doesn’t seep through.

What You'll Need:

Painting can get very messy, especially when it comes down to thinks like doors. You need to figure out what colour you’re going to paint your door, what paint you’re going to use and what tools you’re going to use. Here is what you will need when painting your interior door.

• Your choice of paint
• A paintbrush/roller, depending on your door, you might need to use both tools
• Either newspaper or an old sheet to protect your floors
• Masking tape, this is good for protecting the areas you don’t want to paint, around the letterbox, windows and handle on the door
• Sand paper, if your door needs sanding before the painting begins
• A dry cloth and wet cloth
• A step stool, depending on how you plan to paint your door

1. First thing to do, is to remove all of the old oil and dirt on your door, to do this; scrub the door with a heavy-duty cleaner. Wait for the door to dry before moving on to the next step.
2. If the door has been repainted several times, you’ll need to be careful of paint build up, if there are too many layers of paint on the door could rub against the frame. You’ll want to remove the paint if there are too many layers, otherwise just some sanding paper and sand the door until smooth.
3. Unless the previous level of paint is a near perfect condition, you should prime your door before painting it, this will block stains, mutes dark colour and will help the new paint adhere to the door better.
4. It is then time to move on to the actual painting stage, if your door had panels, start by painting those points first. To avoid brush marks is to avoid using a brush, this is easily done if your door is flat, then just simply go over your door with a roller. However, if you have panels, you will need to edge in around the panels with a paint brush and then coat the rest of the door with a roller. Or, if you would like to paint with a brush you can do that too. You can also paint the door on the frame if you don’t want the hassle of taking the door on and off the hinges.It is important to wait for the door to dry between every layer of paint and cleaning stage. Depending on the paint you choose to use and what tools you want to use, you might need to use more than one coat of paint. The drying time of your paint should be on the can of paint, the time will alter depending on the brand of paint. You can find quick dry paint, although make sure it is the right finish.

That’s most of what you need to know about painting your interior doors. If you have a fun room, like a child’s play room or a creative office, you can consider painting the door with a pattern. For example, painting half of the door one colour, and the other half another colour. Or you can paint the door a bright fun colour. Just remember to protect the floor and walls around the door as it can be hard to repaint over those colours and even harder to get paint out of carpet.