Upgraded & Updated Interior Doors

4 Materials
$25
3 Hours
Easy
My husband and I did a complete remodel of an old cabin with a very small budget. The cabin is almost 40 years old and was built with very basic materials....The internal doors to the bathroom, bedroom and closetts were a dark ugly brown and looked extremely dated. We could have purchased new internal doors, but I am all about salvaging versus replacing. In my opinion, these doors turned out better than anything new we could have purchased.
The problem with just painting these doors was that the stain was really quite dark and I felt like we would need to strip and sand prior to painting. The doors were also pretty rough - my goal was a smooth glossy finish.
I started by removing all the doors and applying citristrip (a non toxic stripping agent Home Depot $6), then scraping and then sanding. I used a small palm sander. I was then ready to paint the first coat of high gloss trim paint in white. Use a roller to apply paint to avoid brush strokes.
Once that was completely dried, I lightly sanded again just to make sure the surface was smooth. Then we added the decorative trim to the outside of the closet doors and to both sides of the bathroom/bedroom doors. This took time and we had to be really careful to get the measurements/placement on the door correct. The trim comes in 8 foot sections and each door took about 2.5 pieces. Another option would have been an outline only of the door but I preferred the two box look. The picture above is the closet door with two sections...which is why we did four boxes. We attached the trim using wood glue (gorilla glue for wood).
Here is a shot of the trim (sometimes referred to as decorative molding). We spaced the trim about 5 inches from the top and bottom of the door and 3 inches on each side, then 4 inches in the middle between the top and bottom pieces.
Here is the bathroom door rehung...I spray painted the hardware a dark pewter (not pictured).
You can see here it really changed the feel of the entire cabin. We went from dark cabin to airy cottage....icon


Time and Cost estimates below are for one standard size door.
Suggested materials:
  • Sand paper   (Home Depot)
  • Paint   (Home Depot)
  • Molding   (Home Depot)
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Flawless C Designed
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