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Refurbishing 
Doors

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Before & After

One of the biggest hidden tasks we are taking on in our home, is to refurbish the doors. All the doors on the top floor match and for the most part were in great shape. We have 6 doors total (not including the front door) that we are planning to refurbish. 2 down, 4 to go!  

We have doors that are both stained with a clear glossy sealer (above left) and painted (above right). We started with Ready Strip, an all purpose stripper that you can buy at any hardware store. It worked great on the first round so we have stuck with it. 

We removed the doors from inside, took off all the hardware and followed the general directions of the Ready Strip. We applied the stripper at first with a thin coat, but found that a heavier coat (especially on the painted doors) was easier to remove. Once the stripper is applied and sits for a few hours (above left) you can come in with a putty knife to remove the sealer and paint (above right). The stained doors only took one coat to remove the glossy sealer, but because there were a number of the different painted layers, the painted doors took about 4 applications. 

Once the sealer was removed, we sanded the doors down to clean up an nicks and scratches (above). Any major nicks were filled with wood filler and sanded down. We started with 60 grit sand paper to remove the remaining stain, then 100, and 220 for a final smooth finish. (120 would work as well). 

Tips:
1. This was more time consuming then I thought it would be. I was planning to remove one door, have it finished and back up the same day. While this can definitely be done, because the stripper needs to sit for a few hours and the painted doors need a few applications, one door took a few days. 
2. If the stripper is applied and is left for more then about 12 hours, it tends to dry out. This isn't a big deal, all you need to do is wet the door down with a spray bottle of water. 
2.  Once most of the stripper is removed we went back in with a wet cloth to remove as much of the access film as we could. A bristle brush is also useful to help remove the stripper from the corners.
3. I started to sand relatively quickly after removing the stripper and found it quickly gummed up the sander. Instead I let the door dry overnight and sanding was much easier. 
4. If any of your doors need additional wood filler, plan for them to sit overnight once again. Leaving time for the wood filler to dry before sanding. 

Some may ask why strip the paint and stain from the doors at all. While this was more time consuming then I thought it would be, it was worth removing the clear sealer because the final paint would not have adhered as nicely or at all to the glossy finish. Because painted doors take paint differently then an exposed wood, to make sure all the doors stayed cohesive, we had to strip the painted doors as well. 

All in all we are extremely happily with the final door, which you can see below!