So you have replaced a new wooden door and you need to give it a new coat of paint. There are a few steps that you have to take in order for you to give it the shine that it deserves. Choices of colours are varied but the first steps are similar. First of all, you have to make sure the surface is really smooth. Follow these steps first before doing anything.
Sandpaper the whole door evenly with a medium range sandpaper.
Use a wet cloth, clean off all the sanded particles that are stuck on the surface. When the wood come in contact with something damp, little wood grains will stick out. You can actually feel with with your palms. It feels coarse even though you thought you had sandpapered it.
Sandpaper the whole surface again with a finer range sandpaper.
Again wipe off all the particles and feel again. Repeat this step until you are satisfied that the whole area has been really smoothed out.
Deciding on the kind of finish
Lots of people likes to Varnish their door. Varnishing takes more skill than painting, but it is less work. There are ready mixed Varnish which you can buy in all Hardware shops and it comes in a variety of colors.
The tactic in varnishing a wooden surface is do it in one stroke. So make sure you get a good quality Varnishing Brush which will absorb enough varnish for you to do it in one complete stroke at a time. What I meant was, dip you brush into the varnish, start from the top and with one even stroke pull the brush to the bottom. If you stop midway and dip your brush again, the place where you left off and restarted will be very obvious. It looks very uneven and ugly. It takes good skills to achieve this. So if you are not up to it, get a professional. Even painters don’t do this. There are actually Varnishing experts around who only does varnishing and nothing else.
Using Gloss Paints
This is much easier to accomplish. The only extra step you have to take is you have to apply a good layer of Undercoat before you can apply the top coat. many people makes the mistake of applying the top coat of Gloss Paint directly without applying a coat of undercoat paint. This is disastrous. First the Gloss paint will absorb into the wood, making it impossible to dry properly even after 2 days. The the colors will be very uneven because some areas absorbs more and some less.
So after the sandpapering process. apply a good layer of wood undercoat paint. Let it dry out totally. You will find that the wooden surface will be a bit rough again because the wood grains will be sticking out again. Sandpaper again and if you see that the undercoat is all evenly applied, wipe away all particles and dust with a piece of cloth. Then you can proceed to apply the top coat with a color of your choice. Unlike Varnishing, you can stop wherever you like and start again. As long as you apply it evenly it will look nice and shiny.