Our Door Upgrade (Or, Let Your Ugly Stuff Set You Free)

In case you need a reminder, let me refresh you on what our house looked like when we bought it.  We had stinky green carpeting, small boxy rooms, and a wide selection of gray, beige, and bright bright green tones to set the mood.

But even after all the work we put into our renovation, painting, and decorating, there was still something bumming us out in every single room: the doors.  And they were MAJOR bummers.  Plain, old, flat doors, mostly painted beige, with mismatched, cheap, shiny brass hardware.

We had left them alone while doing all the other work because I figured it would be easiest to tackle them as one project.  I had grand daydreams of filling the house with beautiful wood doors lovingly selected from architectural salvage yards.

Maybe one day, but for now there is NO WAY I would have the time to go out and find these doors, particularly because all the ones we have are slightly different sizes.  Plus, taking them on myself with paint gave me a great excuse to do something a little “out-there.”  Because, seriously, these doors couldn’t get any worse.  Having ugly stuff is freeing!

I decided to paint the doors an exciting shade of golden yellow, Yellowstone by Benjamin Moore.  I thought it would be a fun way to bring bright color and a common element to each room.  I had this idea in mind when selecting all of our house’s paint colors, which are all cool tones.  Still, it was a bit of a challenge to find a shade of yellow that worked well with each of them, and also our bamboo floors.

I had it mixed in Benjamin Moore’s Natura line, and chose a semi-gloss finish.  I didn’t want to go full gloss given the rough condition of our doors, but I did want some shine and for them to be easy to clean.

I also decided to spray paint the hardware.  Spray painting door knobs is a blogger-right-of-passage, but I also sprayed the hinges, strike plates, and screws to see how they would hold up.  I, unsurprisingly, decided on an oil rubbed bronze look, which would NOT LOOK AT ALL like a bumblebee with the yellow doors.

And doing this with paint allowed me to upgrade all nine of our interior doors for the cost of switching out just one with a brand new door and hardware.

We waited for a long weekend to take on this project, and I’m glad we did.  It was a big job!  So big, that I am surprised I can fit it into one post.  To make it manageable, this post will cover what I did that worked, and I’ve left out my learned-the-hard-way list of what NOT to do, and have covered that in a separate post.

We split the work, with Brad taking charge of the doors, and me taking on the hardware.

Spray Painting Our Knobs, Hinges, and Strike Plates

We started by taking everything down… obviously.  I used a series of cardboard boxes to organize all of the various doorknobs, strike plates, and hinges.

We were obsessive about marking each with which doorway it came from to help us put everything pack together later.  Brad used a sharpie to label the doors beneath where the hinge would sit, and I labeled the sides of each box where the writing wouldn’t get covered in spray paint later.

You can also see in the picture above that I cut out space for the back-end of the door knobs and poked little holes for each screw, so that only the face was left above the cardboard,  This would allow me to spray paint them later without gumming up the workings.

I washed each piece down thoroughly with soap and water, and then it was time to take on the layers of paint and lacquer they were covered in.

I apologize for the quality of that image – and, actually, all of the process images in this post.  Brad and I did this project before this blog was even a blip on the horizon, and I’m counting myself pretty lucky to have any photos at all.

While you sure can’t see anything clearly in that photo, what you can see is that our previous owner certainly wasn’t a neat painter.  There were several layers of paint, some of which were oil-based.  In addition, most of the hinges were covered in a yellowed polyurethane, all gooped on there and cracked.  I would need to get all of this off all 90 pieces of hardware before I could spray paint.

I had read about a way to remove paint from hardware by boiling and soaking, but with so many pieces to keep organized, so many coats of different things, and limited time, I went with a paint stripper.  Still, I used the least-harsh one that I could find, 3M Safest Stripper (affiliate link — read our policies), which claimed it had no harmful fumes and could be used without gloves.  Still, I did everything outside wearing a respirator, goggles, and gloves.  Anything that can do that to paint is probably NOT something I want near me.

I started by sanding each piece down with a rough sandpaper to give the stripper a way to get in, and then coated each piece liberally with a paintbrush.  Once I was done coating, I figured that the first one had soaked enough, and I went back around with a bucket of water and a nylon brush to rub all the gunk off.  There was so much on there that it took a long time and two rounds of this to get it all mostly clean.

And did I mention it was HOT?  It was like 90 degrees and very humid, so this was not a fun exercise.  Still, don’t they look so good all clean and shiny?!

Next, I went around with 220 grit sandpaper and gave each piece a light sanding to rough up the finish, and washed them off again with water.

You can see the difference in the sheen in the picture below, as I was part way through sanding the knobs.  I actually loved the brushed brass look that I got from sanding, and had a moment of plan-regret that we were not doing brushed brass with shiny black doors…

But this was just a passing urge, and the hardware was just in too bad of shape, so I continued on.

After sanding, I went back around and wiped down all 90 pieces with a sander/deglosser and washed it one final time in clean water.  I was really not in the mood to do this last step, after so many rounds with these little pieces of metal, but I knew I would regret skimping on the work now if it meant that I had to do everything all over again just a year down the line.

So that was:

1. Wash in soap and water
2. Sand with rough sandpaper
3. Coat in paint stripper, scrub, and rinse (x2)
4. Sand with 220 grit sandpaper and rinse
5. Wash with deglosser
6. Wash in clean water

Then, it was FINALLY TIME to spray paint, which was a very quick step at the end after all this work.  As the entire DIY-blogosphere recommends, I used many light coats applied throughout an afternoon to get a nice, even finish.  Here is how they looked after just a couple coats:

I had to carefully spray from the side to get the underside of the knobs.  Even so, a little bit of the brass is visible through the finish if you look closely at the underside, which I don’t mind at all.  Tell me who exactly will be closely inspecting that part of my door knobs?

Partway through, I let the hinges and strike plates dry off and then flipped them, since there are parts of each side which are visible.  Also, I sprayed the latches separately, just by covering all the “inner workings” with my gloved hand and spraying one close-up, thick coat onto the latch.  Seemed like a terrible idea, but it worked fine!

At this point, I was done and feeling immensely satisfied with myself.  I moved the hardware into the garage, where I left them for about a week to cure, harden, and off-gas in peace.

Painting Doors

Meanwhile, Brad took on the doors.  Unfortunately, I have very few photos of this process.

These were basic flat doors but they were also in pretty bad shape, with lots of holes, nicks, and globs of dried on paint.  The first thing he did was go around and scrape off the extra paint, fill in gaps with wood filler, and then give them a good sanding to get down to a reasonably smooth finish.

Before this project, many of our doors stuck when we tried to open them – particularly the closets.  So he hauled them all down to the basement and shaved down the edges with a hand planer.  With nine interior doors – in 90 degree very humid weather – this was quite the undertaking!  But it was also so necessary, particularly when you realize that by painting you’ll actually be making every door a little bit wider anyway.

Finally, he washed them all down with soapy water so they would be ready to paint.

I was so happy to see all the strange beige and greens disappear beneath my pretty new yellow.  Of course, our mystery-future-homeowner may say the same thing when painting over my yellow with a then-very-hip-shade-of-puce.  However, to him I say: pfft.

We laid the doors out in the yard and painted one side and all of the edges that way with two good coats.

Once that dried, Brad leaned them all in the garage for a few days to cure a bit, and then flipped them over to paint two coats on the final face.  This all may have only taken one gallon of paint, except that I had used this yellow to paint the inside of a cabinet so we needed to pick up an additional quart to finish the job.

We let them cure in the garage for a few more days, and then moved them up to the house (where it was less damp) to cure for about another week before installation.

Results

Putting doors back on is a huge pain!  I was VERY glad that we had been so careful in marking everything, because it was hard enough to get things to fit back together when we knew exactly where they came from.

In a few cases, doors that were clearly in the right spot just simply didn’t fit any longer.  By an unreasonable amount.  DOOR, YOU WERE JUST HERE, we yelled at them, before Brad took them back down to the garage to plane off another centimeter.

But it was all worth it, because I couldn’t be more in love with how they came out.

The yellow is striking, and reads as bright and saturated without being neon or overwhelming.

I love how it looks with the rest of our decor, and I think we chose a shade that has just enough to distinguish it from the yellow-ish tone of our bamboo floors.

The new doors add a lot to each room in counteracting the cool colors and making them more fun.  This is particularly noticeable in the bedroom, where we chose a calm blue-gray for the walls, which is gorgeous but DULL without something to set it off.

Similarly, it really punches up the bathroom.  The old beige technically went okay in there, particularly with the light tan floor.  But I love the new look so much more.

The yellow also ties into the shower curtain, which I designed in blue, gray, and yellow tones, and the newly oil rubbed bronze hardware ties into our new light fixtures.

The yellow does something special in my dressing room, which is painted a bright teal.  This might be too bright a combination for some people, but I love it.  And this room is just for me!

And just take a look at what a difference in makes in our hallway, which used to be the saddest, darkest spot in the house.

We had to paint the hallway white due to the way some of the walls connect, so I’m really glad I was able to bring in some color through the doors.  Once we add a colorful runner, get all our art hung, and take on the exterior doors (one of which you can see at the end of the hall), we’ll really be in business.

The newly oil rubbed bronze hardware is, inmyhumbleopinion, a transformation.  Going from paint splattered, pitted, shiny brass to simple oil rubbed bronze was huge and makes the house feel that much more polished.

And, with a few notable exceptions that I’ll discuss in my upcoming “what not to do” post, the painted hardware has held up really well.  Even knobs that get a lot of use are still in great shape six months later.

Given the internet’s vast experience with spray painting doorknobs, I was expecting this.  I was less sure about the hinges, latches, and strike plates – but I’ve been pleasantly surprised!  The hinges show absolutely no wear from when they were freshly painted and installed.  And the latches and strike plates are only worn where they rub together opening and closing the doors, which doesn’t bother me at all.  I was worried it would lead to a lot more chipping than this, but it just looks scuffed.

I am so happy with how this door upgrade project came out.  However, there were some bumps along the way, so do remember to check out the next installment, where I share what NOT to do when taking on a project like this.

Thanks for sticking with me through this very long post!

 

(Sharing at Thrifty Decor Chick, I Heart Naptime, DIY Showoff, Think and Make Thursdays, AKA Design, The NY Melrose Family, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Remodelaholic, and Sunday Showcase)