Painted Interior Door | On The Cheap

A Quick Change

After many a trips onto pinterest, I started seeing (or at least noticing) how charming dark interior doors look. It makes sense too. How many hands are on them a day? Why paint them white when you will have to wash them all the time? If you have kids or dogs, you smell what I am stepping in right? So I decided to give it a shot, What is the worst that can happen? Nothing, that’s what. I did this only on my front and back door. I am still debating on painting the bedroom, bathroom and closet doors black. That is a lot of black, and if it don’t look right, that is a lot of primer and paint to ‘fix.’ So here is my door, I like it. The first few days, my husband and I jumped when we would walk past it. It seemed like the door was open all the time. (Startling at night, when you are in your undies!)

Before

Not bad, just a looks like a door.

After

This is super easy, and can be done in a day. Here is a quick breakdown of how to.

1. Wash the door! It gets nasty! Used a magic eraser, it will even help sand the paint that is already on the door. Then take a clean damp rag and wipe the door down.

2. Lightly sand the door, shiny paint wont hold a new coat! It takes five minutes!

3. Remove Hardware!!!

4. Prime (If the door is already been painted, and is lighter than the new color, you don’t need to do this!)

5. Paint the parts of the door that dip in. Then move to the flat surfaces. You may need to use a foam roller if you don’t like brush strokes. I don’t mind them on a door. I think it gives a bit of character, so I used a brush. But I kept them flowing in the same direction, and don’t have start/stop lines all over the place.

6. Lightly sand with fine sandpaper in between each coat when they dry. When you are using a glossy paint, it will dry with a shine. You need to knock that down and ‘open’ the dry coat up so it grips the new coat. This also helps with any oops you may have.

Let dry for a few hours and gently put your hardware back on. That’s it, Easy as pie.

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Hopefully I can replace the awkwardly placed hanging overly polished smoked glass with etched flowers glass hanging tribute to the 1970’s into a nice centered flush mount light.