Painting over woodstain

[jvp67]

We want to replace our front door but are a bit short of cash at the moment so I want to try painting it for now. It is a wood door and the previous owners stained it with a dark woodstain. I've seen advice on various forums that suggest Zinsser products, but I'm a little confused about the specifics. The porch is totally glassed in so the door is not exposed to the elements.

Firstly, do I need to sand off every trace of the stain to leave a bare wood surface, or can I get away with just smoothing the surface? There's a lot of intricate moulding on the door so I'm hoping to keep the sanding to a minimum.

Secondly, I've seen both Zinsser BIN and Bullseyeu 123 mentioned, which would be best in this case?

Finally, I've done a fair amount of painting with satinwood products but have no experience with gloss paint, is it as difficult as its reputation suggests? I'm not sure satin would give a nice enough finish on a front door, but probably better than a terrible gloss job.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[blightymam]

If it's not wax stain that's been used on the door, you can paint it normally, using primer, undercoat and then the finish colour paint. You don't need to sand it down to bare wood, just enough to key the paint well.

If you wish to use BIN, then by all means, help yourself but it wouldn't be necessary. It's great stuff, very expensive and it dries very very quickly making it harder to work with. I would recommend a roller if you go down that route, a small gloss roller.

As for satin/gloss - if you can work with one, I'd say you can work with the other! Not much different. I only ever use oil-based paints, not the new water-based, lots of discussion on here about it, and I would say that oil may be a lot harder wearing for a front door and better for your needs. Harder to get hold of now because of new regulations. Little Greene do a version of oil based paint and pretty much any colour you want. I've used it and apart from being prone to drip by my rubbish hand, it's good stuff.

And yeah, hate gloss apart from on a front door! Something happy about that