How to restore an interior door with your own hands

Do you have an interior door that suits you perfectly in terms of its functional qualities, but its appearance leaves much to be desired or is it just boring? Today we will talk about how to quickly and inexpensively return the attractive appearance of an old interior door. To do this, you will need a minimal set of tools, which, perhaps, everyone has, a little patience, as well as primary skills in working with wood and fiberboard. First of all, you need to pay attention to the material from which the door is made..

Wooden doors

Let’s start with doors made of solid wood, very often during restoration you come across doors with a perfectly preserved base. A thick layer of paint protects the wood from various external influences, sometimes under it you can find such valuable types of wood as oak, walnut or larch. You cannot throw away such doors – you just need to try to restore their previous appearance. The restoration of old doors is a rather laborious process, so no large factory will undertake such work, and it will help you save a tidy sum.

As a rule, door restoration should start with paint removal. For this process, you need a blowtorch. If your doors are varnished, then specialized stores sell special mixtures for such surfaces, designed to make the surface easier to clean. With proper use of a blowtorch, the paint removal process is very simple and accessible to anyone. It is very important not to overdo it when the door surface is warming up, since the door can change its natural color during the process of strong heating. So, keeping the lamp at a certain distance, heat the surface until bubbles appear. Remove paint using a medium-sized trowel. The process is quite interesting, but it requires compliance with safety measures – such work should be done outdoors or in a well-ventilated area. You can use an iron or a blow dryer to remove paint, these tools are not as effective, but can replace a blowtorch if used correctly. When using the iron, you must be extremely careful, since the probability of burning the surface is very high. When working with the iron, use a thick cloth, never bring the iron to a surface without a cloth. The principle of using a building hair dryer does not differ from the principle of a blowtorch, the only difference is that you need a little more time to warm up the surface. Use only a building hair dryer, household models will not work because they are not as powerful and will not be able to maintain the desired temperature.

So, having removed all the paint from the surface, we move on to sanding the door. To obtain the ideal surface, a belt sander with a set of skins of various calibers is suitable, or even better, a sizing machine. But since we carry out the restoration ourselves, you hardly have a calibration or grinding machine on your farm. So we will carry out the processing manually, using only a hand grater. First, you need to choose a large size skin, then the whole process is repeated with a smaller one. It is very important to grind the surface with movements in the direction of the fibers, the transverse grooves in the future will stand out strongly from under the stain and varnish. During the grinding process, various defects can be found. Small cracks or chips can be covered with putty. Use acrylic fillers that are specifically designed for wood and are available in all hardware stores. There are putties of various shades and colors, which will allow you to mask the defect as much as possible. Almost all doors have hard-to-reach places, for high-quality processing, use chisels of various sizes, needle files, sandpaper, whatever if it helps to improve the quality of processing. If the defect cannot be masked using putty, then you will have to glue an onlay, which should be of the same type of wood, match in color and structure – this is a very important point, since the quality of the restoration depends on the correct selection of the insert. For a better surface treatment, you can use hand sanders, hand vibrators do an excellent job with this work and bring the surface to the ideal.

Painting of wooden doors is the final restoration process. The variety of paints and varnishes makes this process quite affordable and easy. First of all, you need to choose the color of your door – for this use various water or oil based stains. Typically, the stain is applied using a spray bottle, but at home this process can be done with a sponge or brush. Excess mixture should be removed with a soft cloth, for even distribution of the stain, you need to carefully clean it with a cloth. Do not leave any lumps of stain as this will affect the color evenly throughout the door. The varnish is applied with a short-haired roller or with a brush, if possible – use a spray gun for this procedure. If you do decide to use a brush, then get a quality tool made of artificial materials..

Fiberboard doors

The technology of restoration of doors made of fiberboard is somewhat different. Despite the fact that these differences are not so significant, they just need to be known. It is very important to remember that you cannot use a blowtorch to remove paint from the surface; you can only use a hair dryer or an iron. For sanding, use only a fine sandpaper, as the thickness of the fiberboard surface usually does not exceed 4 mm. You can slightly change the appearance of the door and stick embossed strips or imitate paneled doors. After the final sanding, the door is covered with paint.

There is another restoration method, in which the fiberboard surface will receive the texture of a solid wood. To get this effect, you need to glue the door with veneer. In specialized stores, they sell veneer on an adhesive basis, it is very easy to glue it, you just need to have the skills to work with an iron, since the veneer is glued by heating the surface. It is very important not to overheat the surface and not burn the veneer when working with the iron. The door will look more attractive if you glue curly slats to the veneer surface. After that, the door should be covered with stain and clear varnish. Only you will know that your door is made of fiberboard – in appearance it will not be distinguished from a door made of solid wood. During the restoration process, more global changes are possible, but as a rule, they require more effort and special skills. For example, you can make a door with glass inserts from a simple door. To do this, you need to mark up future inserts and use a jigsaw to make cuts. Wooden slats are reinforced along the perimeter of the “window” to give the structure rigidity. At your discretion, the “window” can be divided into several parts, it all depends on your imagination and the general design of the room where the door will be installed.

The door frame also needs restoration and further processing. Since at the end of the entire process you will receive a completely new door, you need to replace the hardware. Install new hinges, lock and handles – the lifetime of your doors depends on the quality of the fittings. It is not recommended to replace the boxes with new ones, the box must be restored, for good reason! Doors “not of their first youth”, as a rule, have minor defects, most often deflections in various directions. So, if you replace the door frame, you will only increase the gap difference between the frame and the door..

As you can see, the process of door restoration is not very complicated, each person can try to make a work of art from an old, unnecessary door. It all depends on you and your capabilities, the main thing is to be careful and adhere to technology.