How to paint interior doors

[Danny_mac]

Hi,

Apologies in advance for being a complete noob but I have been reading and watching YouTube for hours and still struggling on how to approach painting my interior doors.

Currently they are painted black gloss from the previous occupant. This makes the rooms really dark so I would like to paint them white gloss or semi gloss. How do I approach this? I guess I need to sand off the original gloss - do I then need to use primer? If so does it have to be x/y/z based? Or do I need to completely strip the doors? Will going from white to black require many coats? Does the paint have to be x/y/z based? So many questions

 

[johnny2007]

No need to strip them.
Sand down with 120 grit to take the sheen off the black gloss.
When all is opaque, dust it and wipe it with a cloth and white spirit.
Then use a white undercoat (i like crown trade).
One coat of this should be enough.
Then 2 coats of white gloss.
If you want a very smooth finish, sand lightly with 320 or even 400 before last coat.
Water based dry quicker, solvent based paint is a lot more forgiving as it takes a lot longer to dry (sometimes an entire day)

 

[sparkwright]

Personally I would use more than one undercoat.

Once you have sanded the old black paint, I would then apply the undercoat.

This first undercoat will not cover very well.

I would keep applying undercoats, making sure they thoroughly dry before each coat, until you have a SOLID white finish all over the door. Perfectly white, no streaks or black showing through. Lightly sand off any 'nibs' with fine sandpaper and dust off. This could take something like four undercoats, give or take, but you want a decent white.

Then apply ONE topcoat.

I don't like recommending two coats of gloss to people, because if they mess up the first coat of gloss, it takes AGES and AGES for it to harden if the messed up area needs sanding.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Water based dry quicker, solvent based paint is a lot more forgiving as it takes a lot longer to dry (sometimes an entire day)

Solvent based will also eventually yellow, but is a more robust finish. Water based tends to mark much more easily with fingers and doesn't clean up quite so well. It is also easier to apply, on a flat door surface you can use a roller, with a brush for cutting in the details.

Either way, much easier if the doors can be laid flat on trestles to sand then paint, than painting them in place vertical.

 

[sparkwright]

If you DO go down the route of taking the doors off to paint them flat, BEWARE of putting a newly painted side down on trestles - it can seriously damage the paint.

I prefer to paint them when they are already hung - what you see when you are painting is what you will see when it's dry and finished.

Up to you of course.