Painting a flush door.

[JimFoster]

I am a diy beginner.
Today I had to paint 4 flush doors.
These are the steps that I took.
1. Sugar soap each door with a sponge and then rise it off with fresh water. And of course remove the door handles.
2. Rub down each surface with a medium grade sandpaper. I thought medium would give a better key. I thought fine would barely touch the gloss.
3. Brush down to remove dust.
4. Then paint with 2" natural brush. I used dulux satinwood once. I put about 600ml or so in a paint kettle. I painted 9 imaginery rectangles starting with the top right, top middle, top left etc.
5. I did the sides with a 1" brush.

I thought I would totally mess this job up. But it looks OK.
My question is what should I have done different.

 

[misterhelpful]

Sounds just about right to me, although I work left to right.

I do prefer a finer sandpaper (180 or 240 grit), as medium can sometimes cause damage, and then use a tack/damp cloth to remove the dust.

The best way to finish is to 'lay off' the whole door in long light strokes, bottom to top, to eliminate any brush marks.

To make the job quicker, you could have applied the paint with a mini roller and then layed off with a brush, but as a beginner, why rush?

 

[Rusti]

I agree totally with Mr Helpful. Fine sandpaper should be sufficient to give you your key and as for the mini roller, not only is it quicker, I find it is neater than a brush because where you use a brush it is quite difficult to get rid of the strokes, but the roller doesn't leave any.
Sounds like you did a good job though so no problemo.