Painting both sides of a door at the same time

I have painted more six-panel doors in my life than I ever thought possible. Painting doors is not in my service catalog, so how did I get so lucky? I painted almost all of the doors in my own home, all of the doors in my sister's home, and doors and trim in my father's home. So I guess you could call me a seasoned veteran when it comes to painting doors.

This blog post is dedicated to the heavy solid wood six-panel doors because that is what I'm familiar with. More expensive than hollow core doors, but well worth it in my opinion, even if it means dealing with heavy doors.

One helpful tool I have found for removing doors from the hinge without unscrewing it, is the spring hinge tool. This tool allows you to remove the pin in the hinge so that you don't have to take the hinge off the frame. I purchased mine at Sherwin Williams.  My husband is obsessed with this tool, it was a real time saver after spending hours trying to get the bottom hinges off with a hammer and nail.  It might seem easier just to unscrew everything but then you risk having to re-hang the door if the holes become too loose or if the hinges get mixed up when you put the door back on.

I use a spray gun for painting, as there is a lot of square feet involved when painting doors and spraying the paint is so much faster than applying by hand. Work smarter not harder, right?


After taking the door off the hinge and removing all the hardware, I clean the door from debris and gunk using disinfectant wipes. Then I give it a good sanding and wipe down all the sanding dust (do this on both sides). Now it is ready for primer and paint.


When I painted the doors in my home, I was on a tight timeframe. My twin babies were in the home, and we normally shut the door to their bedroom at night so that they wouldn't wake up from any noise. I wanted to limit the number of nights I was taking a risk of waking sleeping babies. Also, with all the doors off the hinges this meant zero privacy in the bathrooms... I'm sure anyone looking for bathroom privacy was very eager for the door painting project to be wrapped up as quickly as possible.


Okay so how can I paint both sides of the door without having one side rest on fresh paint?  Well I had an idea and my husband helped me implement. I used very long screws and drilled two on the top of the door and two on the bottom. I knew nobody would ever see the very tops or bottoms of the doors, so I never even bothered to fill the screw holes and paint. But the screws gave the door extra length, and I rested the screws on top of wood pyramids that my husband helped build out of 2x4s, but you could also rest the screws on sawhorses as well. The door has to be raised just high enough off the ground so that it doesn't touch.

So now that the door is supported by screws and resting on wood, I primed one side, flipped it over and then primed the other side. That way I could finish both sides at a time. Then I did the same thing with paint and let it dry.


I let the door dry overnight and then removed the screws and rehung it on the hinges. That's it! Easy enough, right?

Are you brave enough to tackle painting all the doors in your house? Was this tip helpful?


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