Painting Interior Doors

Tell all ya friends and neighbors!

Painting interior doors is a budget friendly, quick project to undertake that has a huge impact. I’ll give you a step by step that shows you just how we tackled the project and how you can too!

Do you ever complete a project and just love at least almost every part of it?

That’s totally this project for me! Painting interior doors is quick (my favorite), makes a huge difference (another favorite) and is actually CHEAPOLA (my absolute definite favorite).

This can be super easy if you don’t need to remove the door from the hinges, but in our case, we needed to spray paint them with our favorite black spray paint so we had to take them off.

However, in a day, I was able to paint 3 doors, their hinges and screws, and hang them right back up where they’re supposed to be.

If I would have figured out the rhythm a little bit earlier I might have even gotten more done.

Easy Steps To Painting Interior Doors

If you have to take your door off the hinges too, you’ll want to spray the hinges and screws first thing so they can be drying while you sand the door.

There is a potential you can skip the step of sanding (which is not an option when you’re painting kitchen cabinets) if you have newer doors that have never been painted. You can just clean them really good and use some deglosser, but again, not our story.

I took these bad boys off hinges and sanded both sides to make sure the paint has a smooth finish.

Make sure if you have any holes in your door that you fill them with wood filler and you can sand them when you sand the rest of your door.

You’ll want to use a tack cloth or a microfiber cloth so that you won’t be rolling sawdust in your paint. Ew.

If your door has nooks and crannies (<– technical term) like ours does, then you will want to take a brush and do all of those first.

We chose Sherwin Williams Iron Ore for our door color. Super dark gray, but not quite black and it’s perfect. (Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron is a very comparable color!)

I would also suggest you paint the outside of your door first. That way, when you hang it back on your hinges you can open the door and paint the inside which is way easier than the other way around. Sometimes you gotta learn the hard way. Do as I say, not as I do or whatever. 

Related Posts: If you want to see what painting these interior doors look like in more rooms, you can see them in our pantry, our son’s nursery, and even a sneak of them in our master bedroom Christmas room tour.

If are painting a flat door, you can skip this step.

If you have paneled doors like we do that aren’t just flat doors, you’ll want to make sure you paint the inside parts with a brush first.

After you have painted all your little crevices, take your foam roller and roll every other part of the door.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t do this in any particular order or even direction and honestly you can’t tell at all.

After doing one coat, let it dry for a couple hours and then repeat the above process again for a second coat.

Before you do your next coat, check your hinges, screws or door hardware if you painted them to see if any parts need to be sprayed again.

All you need to do now is hang them back up! I have to say I am SO PLEASED with how easy this entire process was and the huge impact it has on the entire flow of the house.

After seeing the picture of our new rug in the entryway, I knew that the backside of the front door need to be painted too and it makes a HUGE difference.

See?! I still need to replace the front doorknob, but since that’s an exterior door and a “double door” we’ll have to wait a bit on that one because it’s a touch more involved.

I’m just so stoked a project has actually (at least so far) has gone according to plan. Ya know, like the very exact OPPOSITE of our guest bathroom.

Here’s some FAQ’s that we get a lot that hopefully I can answer for you:

What kind of paint do you use on interior doors?

We used latex paint (aka. not oil based) in eggshell. A gallon of paint can go a long way. We did all of our doors, minus a couple closet doors we’re debating on replacing with less than a gallon of paint.

Do you need to prime before you paint the doors?

If you have light colored doors and are painting them dark, no!

If you have dark doors and are painting them light, first of all why? JK, but seriously you might want to prime, but honestly you may not have to.

I’m team no primer on most projects, though.

Should you paint interior doors?

Uhhhh, yeah. Yeah you should. It’s cheap and it will make a huge impact.

Should you use a paint or roller to paint a door?

If you have paneled doors, you’re going to need both, but if you don’t, you just need the roller.

I wouldn’t bother trying to paint a door with a paint brush. It will take you 100 years and you won’t get as good of a finish.

Brushes are good for if you have crevices or painting the edges of the door.