Heavily varnished wooden doors

melb

Hi there you know the internal doors you get in Spanish houses/flats that are wooden and varnished but it almost looks like the varnish is part of the wood as it appears so thick and hard? It's like it was part of the manufacturing process. Well ... because ours are a bit bashed around and a bit dark, I was wanting to paint them maybe white or cream. Would I just use Nitromors or sandpaper or does anyone know if there is another method I should use. Also the wardrobe doors are the same. Sorry this is vague but hopefully someone might know what I'm wittering about. thanks

ian103

get the doors dipped to remove the varnish, then repaint. we had stained / varnished doors that i pointed white, many coats, a special primer and it was tedious, I should have got them stripped as suggested. (its difficult to paint on varnish - they react with each other)

ed110220

I'm interested in this too. I have 1940s 4-panel doors that over the years have been painted many times so all the details are smoothed out/lumpy and the paint is chipping.

I stripped and repainted one side of one door by hand, but it took so long and so much effort that I'm not doing that again. It does look much better though, all sharp and new looking.

Will dipping give the same effect and pretty much make the door ready to paint again? Underneath the paint the door was in pretty much perfect condition.

melb

we took our pine doors to be dipped and stripped where we live in england and they came up lovely and we waxed them although could equally have painted them. our problem is these are in spain and on the seventh flor so difficult to remove and take away for stripping. Also it isn't that they have loads of different layers - it's hard to describe unless you've seen them but they are just like really shiny wood