Painting bare doors from scratch

[D_Hailsham]

All the doors in our house are bare pine as in the photos below.

We have only been in the house a couple of years and have been slowly redecorating the house. So far we have avoided the problem of the doors.

Unfortunately they are not very good quality, probably from some DIY shed. (Other houses have plain wood doors, typical estate builder quality!)

The wood if very rough in places and there are knots all over the place, some are still weeping. Some of the doors are also warped.

We have decided that we do not like the unpainted finish so we have a dilemma: do we shell out a lot of money and buy all new doors and paint them, or is it possible to paint the existing doors to hide all the blemishes. If so, how do we go about it?

 

[janz70]

you can but will be a lot of work, treating knots, priming, filling, sanding and then painting or buy a new doors for about £15 to £20 already primed then you have to fit it or have them fitted

If cost is the issue paint your old doors if not buy some new ones

 

[Zampa]

First thing you need to do is knot them...not just the knots, but any splits or resinous areas too.

Them prime it with either acrylic primer undercoat or thinned oil based undercoat.

Always brush in the direction of the grain.

Then fill any rough areas and rub down the whole door with 100 grade abrasive paper.

Undercoat twice then gloss or a couple of coats of eggshell or satin

Order to paint the door...

Two ways you can do it...DIY way:

All the panels first, Muntin (thats the centre vertical pieces) top rail, transom rail, middle rail, bottom rail then the styles (the long vertical sides pieces)

Or...another way:

top two panels, middle two panels, muntin, transom, top rail styles...working your way down the door...finish all the frame parts of the door i.e...working your way down..the bottom muntin, middle rail, styles etc

The finish with the bottom two panels...it saves a lot of getting up and down and easier for you to maintain a wet edge with the paint..thus avoiding drag marks etc.