Door Transformation: With a Little Help from a Friend

Intending to preserve the original doors, I soon learned that it turned out to be a labor-intensive task that demanded more time than I could give as we were working on the entire house. After investing an entire day into the restoration of one door, it became clear that the pursuit of keeping them all might not be feasible or worthwhile.

Even with a wire bristle brush and Citrus Strip, a product that I normally love, especially when restoring furniture, the 100 years’ worth of paint was incredibly hard to take off. So, we decided to explore new doors while retaining the essence of our initial vision.

Late night working on the door.

Mostly done.

Finshed the following day.

Enter Fred, our Belgian carpenter friend known for his custom cabinets based in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Fred, or as we fondly call him, "The Belgian Guy," became our guiding force in this new challenge.

Fred skillfully chiseled out precise spaces for the doorknob, keyhole, Mortise lock, and hinges, ensuring a seamless integration of functionality and aesthetics.

Next was time for staining. I hand-sanded the doors with 100-grit paper making sure the surface was soft and clean. I used MiniWax's Special Walnut stain, a stain we used consistently throughout our home, and began the staining process.

To stain the doors, I used a stain brush, meticulously working on one section (approximately 1/5 of the surface) at a time. After applying the stain to a section, I circled back to the beginning, wiping off the excess with a clean cloth as I reached the end. This process was repeated for each subsequent section, ensuring a thorough and even application on both sides of the door. Also, since doing all the doors would take me several days, I soaked the brush overnight in mineral spirits so that I could reuse the brush without it hardening the following day.

Once the stain had fully dried (overnight) and set, I applied a layer of Rust-Oleum Parks Pro Finisher, a water-based polyurethane, using a rolling foam brush. Following the application of the first layer, I allowed it to dry and gave a light hand-sanding to eliminate any air bubbles or imperfections, and then applied a second layer of polyurethane. After drying thoroughly, the doors were ready for installation, and we installed the hardware and hung the doors.

In the next post, I share what we did to revive the original hardware!