Changing the colour of 1960s varnished doors?

rabidbun

Hi,

We're in a house with a lot of hollow, mahogany coloured, varnished 1960s doors at the moment, and cannot afford to replace the doors with new ones (we want to get pine to match a couple of new ones from last year, so will have to save ). However, the brown colour is really looking naff.

Are there any good/cheaper than a door ways to get them to go a different colour?

So far we've tried real gloss (it ran, a lot), melamine undercoat (meant to bond to varnish, it didn't!), matt and silk. The varnish has run through on the matt and the silk to make brown streaks, and the undercoat is chipping off, so I am loathe to try painting on it tbh. It doesn't seem to make a difference if we sand or not before painting. We've also found that the fast dry gloss has some sort of a reaction with the varnish such that it marks and/or rubs off - seems to be soft somehow?

Having now run out of paints in the garage to test on the doors, I figured I'd ask here incase anyone had any ideas of what we could do? Thanks for any suggestions!

crankup

Rabidbun - Prime them with Zinsser 123 or Stain Block. Their products can hold back all sorts of problems from previous paints/varnishes.
U/C and gloss as normal.

rabidbun

That's great, will get some of that and give it a go! Thanks!

jcb208

Cheaper way is good rub down and undercoat thinned ,this bonds to most finishes