Painting interior doors well comes down to five things: cleaning off hand oils, sanding the old finish, priming where the door needs it, applying thin coats of a hard enamel, and giving the paint enough time before the door is rehung and closed. Most failed door paint, from peeling around the handle to doors that stick to the frame, traces back to one of those steps being rushed.
A door is also more work than it looks. Each one has two faces, four edges, hinges and a handle, and a panelled door has far more surface than a flat one.
Why Doors Are Different From Walls
Doors are handled more than any other painted surface in a house. They get pushed at the lock edge, grabbed around the handle and knocked by laundry baskets and vacuum cleaners. They also close against a frame, so any paint that is still soft gets pressed against another painted surface.
That is why doors are painted in an enamel rather than wall paint, and usually in a satin or semi-gloss sheen that is hard and easy to wipe. Our guide to paint sheen by room explains why trim and doors get the shiniest finish in the house.
Cleaning and Sanding Come First
In its guide to painting an interior door, Sherwin-Williams starts with washing the door with a degreasing dish soap, rinsing it with a damp cloth, then sanding the surface smooth and wiping off the dust. The area around the handle and the lock edge need the most attention, because that is where hand oils build up.
The guide also recommends removing hardware ahead of time and reattaching it once the paint is fully dry. We do the same: hinges, handles and strike plates come off rather than being masked, because masking leaves paint edges around the hardware that show up close.
Primer: When a Door Needs It
Sherwin-Williams advises a coat of primer on a door that has not already been painted or primed, and waiting for it to dry completely before painting. Two other situations need primer too:
- Old oil-based enamel. Many older doors carry an oil finish. Modern water-based paint does not bond to it reliably without a bonding primer, and skipping that step is how paint ends up peeling off in sheets.
- Stained wood going to white. Stained or dark wood doors bleed tannin and colour through light paint, so they need a stain-blocking primer before the topcoat.
If you are not sure what is on your doors now, that is something to check at the quote, not after the first coat.
Brush, Roller or Spray
Panelled doors are usually painted in a set order: the recessed panels and their mouldings first, then the flat rails and stiles around them. Sherwin-Williams describes using an angled brush on the panels and around the hardware and a roller for the remaining areas, in thin, even layers.
Thin coats matter more on doors than anywhere else. Enamel applied heavily sags and runs down the panels, and the thicker film stays soft longer. Two thin coats look smoother and cure harder than one thick one.
Spraying gives the smoothest result on a door, but it takes more masking and set-up, so whether it suits a project depends on how many doors there are and whether they can be taken down and done together.
Dry Time and Rehanging
Sherwin-Williams calls for at least four hours of drying before a second coat, and four hours or overnight after the final coat. Even then, paint that is dry to the touch is not fully hard, and a door closed too soon can stick to the frame and pull paint off when it is opened.
So doors are closed gently and not forced for the first while, and anything that presses on the finish, such as door stops or over-the-door hooks, goes back on last. Our post on how long to wait before closing a freshly painted front door goes into dry and cure time in more detail.
Planning Doors Into a Bigger Project
Painting every interior door in a house is slow, careful work: a single door, both faces and the edges, can take most of a day once cleaning, priming, two coats and drying are counted. In the older homes near downtown Barrie and Allandale, original doors can carry many layers of old enamel and need more preparation again.
Doors are often best done alongside the trim and walls, so the colours and sheens are chosen together. Caleb's Creations provides trim and door painting across Barrie and Simcoe County, including interior doors, casings and baseboards, as well as full interior painting. Request a written quote to have your doors looked at.
