Painting gloss work

Painting over existing Gloss work (Doors, frames and skirtings) can quickly become very intimidating. And rightfully so, the paint itself is pretty expensive so you do not want to stuff things up, and due to the higher sheen level, imperfections such as brush strokes or insufficient prep work are more prominent and will be seen from a mile away.

So where do we start?

As always, it is all in the prep!

First up make sure you put down dropsheets to protect the flooring, remove door handles, striker plates and all other hardware from the doors.

Now we start sanding. Already painted gloss work will need a good sand, start with some 120Grit Sandpaper. With steel frames, you will often have some chipped paint, make sure you sand all edges smooth even though you will end up sanding through to bare steel (Galvanize afterwards). With timber frames be careful when sanding close to the edges, as we do not want the edges to change its shape.

Electric orbital sanders will make quick work when sanding doors. Just make sure that you don't put any pressure on it, you just guide it in the desired direction.

Depending on the door profile, you will still need to get your hands on some sandpaper though :)

Once everything is sanded, dust everything down. Now it's time to put on some primer. There are hundreds of different options when it comes to choosing the right primer, and most of them have their purpose. So which one should you use? Water-based primers are super easy to use, easy to cleanup and widely available at your local hardware store. But they can be a bit of a hit-and-miss. If you want to be 100% sure that the primer sticks to the surface, get your hands on some oil-based primer. Not only has it far superior adhesion, but it also has stain-blocking capabilities which might help in some situations and the coverage is far better too. However applying oil-based paints can be a bit more challenging as it takes off within seconds.

Once you primed everything, let it dry for 24h hours. Afterwards, you give it a light(!!!) sand with some 180-240 grit sandpaper, we do not want to sand through the primer. A good dust down afterwards and I like to wipe my surfaces down with some tack cloth.

Once everything is nice and clean we start glossing. Make sure you start early in the morning or let the aircon cool down the room. Another tip is to add roughly 10% of floetrol to your paint. This will help reduce brush marks. With door frames, just concentrate on one face. E.g. start on both sides of the frame with the architrave, once both sides are dry start painting the door jamb. When painting doors you want to cut in the hinge side on the bottom with a brush and roll the door with a fine nap roller (e.g. 4mm nap microfiber) straight afterwards (wet on wet).

Repeat that process for the second coat and thats about it ;)

I hope that helped a little bit, if you have any questions we are here to help.