Our front door painting service is second to none! We have been painting front doors in Dublin for 4 decades now and have pretty much seen it all!
Front door painting requires a certain amount of preparation first. The amount of preparation required usually depends on the front door.
Generally the type of preparation required ranges from stripping all the paint away to simply cleaning & sanding. With a front door that’s in excellent condition and just needs a colour change we would usually recommend a good clean-down followed by sanding with a high grade to remove the sheen.
Wooden hall doors make up 95% of the doors we paint in Ireland. The other types of doors we paint are composite and occasionally UPVC.
Wooden-type front door painting usually requires a bit more preparation, especially for older doors like Edwardian, Victorian or even Georgian. These types of doors can have loose flaky paint, bubbling paint, gaps and holes that need to be repaired.
In this video, you can see a standard Edwardian front door receiving the sanding of a lifetime!
With older front doors it’s highly likely that the paint, or paint layers, have lead-based paint. For this type of paint, its recommended that a sander & vacuum combination is used to minimize lead exposure to our painters, our customers and the environment.
Our standard preparation & painting process for a hall door is as follows.
- First, the door is cleaned to remove any grease & grime.
- Next, all the door hardware is removed.
- Loose, flaky & bubbling paint is scraped away.
- The door is sanded down using a dustless sander
- Door is dusted down and tacked off.
- A first coat of primer is applied
- The door is filled with a combination of fillers
- Fillers and door are sanded down and touched up with primer.
- Filler is applied again where necessary, sanded and touched up.
- The undercoat is applied.
- The door is rubbed down and second undercoat applied, if necessary.
- The top coat is applied. Gloss will take 1 coat assuming there’s a good undercoat, Satinwood and eggshell will require two coats.
That’s it!
What paints can be used on a front door?
The types of paint that can be used on a front door are –
- Oil-based paint
- Hybrid (oil suspended in water).
- Water-based paint.
- 2k paint, this is used for Upvc doors & windows.
What type of finish to use on front door?
The types of finish are usually –
- High gloss
- Semi gloss
- Satinwood
- Eggshell
The hardest-wearing paint is an oil-based gloss. This, in my opinion, is the best paint for a long-lasting finish. That said, water based paint formulas have improved and they could easily be just as good as the old oil based paints. My favourite paint to use is Sikkens Rubol Satura Plus, this is an oil based semi-gloss. It looks awesome and is extra durable.
Farrow & Ball exterior estate eggshell is very popular. It’s a dull eggshell finish. This paint doesn’t last as long as the gloss finish but you should still get a few good years.
