Repainting front door..

tizzle6560

Our front door is looking rather knackered and could do with a spruce up. Years of painting layer after layer of different colours have it looking a bit like a half finished gobstopper.

Would you suggest stripping all layers off and getting it back to the bare wood, or simply add to the affect bu giving it a fresh coat or two, after sanding down a bit and adding a layer of primer first?

Ta.

Al1x

My husband sanded ours down till it didn't have any flaky bits and it was smooth all over, then gave it a couple of coats of paint. He didn't get it back to bare wood and it is still looking good a few years later.

Sicard

As above is fine.

It's a lot of hassle getting back to bare wood either using blow torch or chemicals.

Grenage

Just sand it back to until you have a solid surface to work on; you don't need to remove all of the paint.

phil24_7

Or buy some industrial paint stripper (not nitromors), paint it on, leave it for 10 minutes and scrape it off!

dominoman

Sand it to rough it up and to smooth any big bumps. 30 mins.

Make sure there are no flakey bits.

Then one coat of undercoat and 1-2 of topcoat.

I always give a very light sand before the final topcoat (using fine fine sand paper) which gets it to a silky smooth finish. If you do that remember to wipe away the dust with a damp sponge and then let it dry

Slinky

And don't paint it red if it faces the sun. Seems to be the fastest fading colour.