Tips for Painting Interior Doors

Freshly painted doors can enhance the makeover of any house. You can paint your doors on your own or hire a professional painter to do it for you.

Many people prefer painting their doors themselves as they want to enjoy painting them on their own. However, if you don’t have any experience or want high-quality paintwork, you should always hire professionals for complete painting service.

If you choose to paint or spray paint your interior doors, you need to know some tips and skills to do the job right. Let us explore some tips by professional painters that you can use to paint your doors.

Remove or cover the door handles:

Paint can stain the door handles and locks. So, it is better to remove them or cover them with painter’s tape to prevent them from getting stained. You will need a screwdriver with multiple heads to remove the handles and locks.

Call a locksmith to remove the inbuilt lock systems as they are difficult to remove. Removing these things will make it easy to clean, sand and then paint the doors.

Fill the cracks and holes:

If there are any holes or cracks in your doors, you can fill them with a wood filler, gypsum plaster, or a filling compound. Put a small amount of wood filler or filling compound on a putty knife and put it into the hole or crack uniformly. Place it as uniformly as possible and leave it to dry for at least two hours.

Check the filling the next day, and it requires more filling, add the required amount of filling compound to fill the space completely.

Sand the surfaces:

The old paint gets worn and imperfections develop with time on the door surfaces. That is the reason why homeowners want to repaint their doors. Sanding removes the worn paint and imperfections easily and prepares the surfaces for a clean and uniform finish.

Start painting with a Roller:

If you have already chosen the paint color, mix several cans in a bucket so that you can have the same shade on every door. Sometimes, the shade in different cars can vary a little, although not noticeable in the interiors in low light.

Use a 4-inch roller to apply a thin layer of paint on the door starting from an edge. If you want to paint the trim first, you can use a 2-inch brush.

To remove any lines, move the lightly loaded brush or roller from bottom to top. Using this technique will help you paint quickly and uniformly while leaving a wet edge.

Painting a paneled door:

Many homes have paneled doors and the technique to paint them is different from painting a flat door. Paint every panel beginning from the upper left side downwards in a sequence.

Always use a brush of appropriate width to paint a paneled door. Don’t worry if you paint a bit outside the edges of a panel. Once the edges are painted, use a small roller to paint the space between the panels.

If the rollers of appropriate size are not available, use a 2-to-4-inch brush to paint the center of the panels.

Minimize the drying time:

Paint in light and uniform coats to minimize the drying time. Thick coats of paint take a bit longer to dry and may look nonuniform after drying.

If you are using a brush, you should dip its bristles halfway in the paint and tap the brush against the container edge slightly to remove the excess paint.

If you plan to use a roller, place it in a pan and use the back-and-forth strokes to paint uniformly without soaking it.

Let the paint dry before installing knobs and locks:

Let the paint dry completely before installing the doorknobs and locks. Also, tell your kids and family members not to touch the doors until they dry completely.

Once they dry up completely, you can install the accessories and start using the doors as you use them normally.

Final Words:

Painting the doors is not difficult, even if you are painting them for the first time. All you need to do is to follow the correct sequence of steps, use the right size of tools and prepare the surfaces before grabbing a brush or roller. Following these tips can help you to paint your interior doors easily and conveniently.

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