My previous attempts at painting doors in my house have gone wrong, VERY WRONG.  My front door is coated in some weird, super thick shiny black paint that shows every single brush stroke from the cheap brushes I used.  That door is so ugly for me to look at that I mostly use the garage door entrance just to avoid seeing it. I’m not sure how to fix it or if it can be fixed, but it’s a DIY travesty of epic proportions.

My other door fail was an interior door into my office and it’s probably worse than the front door, but since the lighting is so bad I’m able to act like the door is perfectly fine.  Those are two projects that I can’t wait to get to when I finish the bonus room….one day. In  a previous post I discussed my thoughts on painting the doors and choosing a color. Check those posts out here and here. Today,I’m going to get over my door painting fears and paint 4 of them black. Yes, people! I’m doing black doors in the bonus room. Yikes!

Paint Your Doors Black - Before and After Bonus Room Makeover | Black Doors

What I learned was that proper prep, good tools and good paint make a world of difference. It’s time to paint these doors like a pro or die trying!!!!

Here’s one of the doors before with basic white paint that showed all kinds of marks and dingy fingerprints.

Painting With the Right Tools

As I mentioned in the last post, I’m using Benjamin Moore Mopboard Black paint.  I love Benjamin Moore for it’s color selection and the quality of the paint.  It can be expensive, but it’s worthwhile to pay a little more to ensure a good outcome.  Believe me!  After a visit to my favorite Ace Hardware, I was told that the Advance paint worked well for doors and wood trim because it levels like an oil based paint, but it was water based. Perfect, mix me up a a gallon of Mopboard Black in Satin, please!

While IHomeRight Paint Sprayer, paint, spray, paint tools, spent time thinking out my action plan to paint the doors, I decided that I would use a paint sprayer this time.  Many people on Pinterest recommend spraying for the perfect finish and since my paint brush skills are already in question, I ordered a handy dandy paint sprayer on Amazon.  This is what I ordered: HomeRight C800766 Finish Max Fine Finish Sprayer for $61.  It seems to be the go to paint sprayer for a novice like me.  I can’t wait to use it for my black doors!

Protect the Area

So, here’s the other dilemma.  Paint sprayers are messy and most people recommend that you spray outdoors.  Most normal people would heed that advice; not me.  I figured painting outdoors would be hassle. You have to carry the doors downstairs, then you have to make sure you don’t get over spray on your neighbor’s property, and then you have to make sure that you can keep the wind from blowing dust and leaves all over your wet paint.  My thought process says to heck with that.  These doors are getting painted in the room that is under construction.  I’ll drape plastic in the small alcove area and hope I can contain the over spray.

Paint room, over spray, paint sprayer, plastic cover

Here is a view of my plastic draped alcove and it catches all the over spray perfectly. At least, it did catch it all until I woke up the next day to find it had all fallen on the floor. Uggghhhhh! It took me almost an hour and two rolls of painter’s tape to create this and now it’s sloughed on the floor like I’m waiting to dispose of a body.  After staring at the mountain of plastic, I decided to staple them up instead. That worked great and it stayed until I said so!

The Perfect Smooth Finish

Paint Sprayer Black Doors

This is a shot of the first pass with my new paint sprayer.  These black doors are going to look amazing! I really wish I had used a paint sprayer on my other door projects, but I will next time. One problem I encountered was the thickness of my paint.  The Advance paint is thick, hence the great leveling aspect.  Paint sprayer Lesson #1:  Paint sprayers don’t like thick paint!  In order to thin it out, you have to add water and the amount of water depends on the paint.  After using the paint viscosity cup a dozen times, we finally thinned the paint out enough to spray the doors.

black doors, painted black, paint sprayer,

Black Interior Doors | Dark Interior Doors| Benjamin Moore Mopboard Black Paint Color | Modern Room Updates for CheapLook at that! The smooth satin finish is exactly how I imagined it would be.  It looks like a professional paint job and the longest part of the process was cleaning the paint sprayer. For years I’ve wanted to paint the doors and now I finally have black doors in the bonus room. Now I’m thinking about doing this all over the house. I’m getting ahead of myself, but one day it will happen. Of course, one project always leads to another. What am I to do about the hinges???? Stay tuned!

***Project Update***  Click here if you want a cheap and easy solution to those old 80’s style gold hinges.

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