How I Painted My Metal Front Door

Three years ago, I painted my metal front door. Since I'm so satisfied with the results, even all this time later, I'm blogging about it. My usual blog topics are a lot more centered around fiber-crafts, but in the spirit of sharing creative ideas, this one's pretty practical.

When I wanted to paint my front door, I couldn't find any tutorials or DIY explanations online that related to my kind of front door. So, when I worked on the project, I took pictures, hoping to blog about it some day. And then I waited a while, so I could give honest suggestions, knowing that it had worked AND lasted. 

My metal front door had a wood-grain-look finish on it, and the finish was slowly bubbling up and flaking off. This door had been facing the unrelenting afternoon sun for nearly two decades, so I wasn't surprised. But I was disturbed to find that little chunks of wood-look would disappear and would reveal the dark, shiny metal of the door. 

When I wanted to start the project, I did what any modern DIY-er does: searched the internet. For some reason, on this topic the internet was surprisingly unhelpful. Nobody seemed to be talking about what to do about repairing textured finishes.

Since I didn't find any online how-to help for my exact project, I pieced together the useful ideas I found, and I just gave it a try. I'm sharing my project here, in case anyone else is looking for advice on how to paint a metal front door.

Here's another close-up of the "before" look on one of the panels of the door. The finish layer was bubbling, cracking, and flaking off. Even when I tried to touch-up paint the bare spots, there was an obvious texture problem.

I wanted to find a way get the door back to looking good, but I didn't have a way to repair or replace the wood-grain finish. The white stuff felt like it was a thin layer of brittle vinyl or plastic, so when it flaked off, not only did it show the dark metal beneath, but it also left a void in the door's texture.

I started by scraping the flaking finish. I used a basic putty knife for most of the work. I didn't use any chemical remover solutions, because the plain scraper was pretty effective.

Some of the finish flaked off immediately; some of it required more work. At the very edges, sections of the finish wouldn't come off at all, so I just sanded those spots as smooth as possible.

Here's what the door looked like after I scraped off what I could and after I sanded the very edges a little smoother. Here's the mostly-scraped upper part of the door:

Afterward, I moved on to putting primer on the door. 

Zinsser 1-2-3 primer is my favorite. It's an indoor-outdoor primer that works on a variety of surfaces, including metal. It's also water-based, which makes cleanup easier.  

Just for the record, my favorite drop cloths for jobs like this are cheap shower curtains, the kind you can buy for a dollar or two at your favorite dollar store or one-stop-shopping store.

I decided not to remove the doorknobs or hinges or anything, mostly because I needed the front door to be functional during the several days that I was working on the door. So, I taped around the doorknobs and hinges with painter's tape and just tried to be careful. 

I found that multiple coats of primer is a good idea, and that's what I recommend on a project like this: at least two coats of primer. The first coat of primer tends to look a little thin on bare metal, and on any dark surface, you need good coverage; giving it a second coat of primer provides the needed additional protection and coverage. Even if you have to paint on three coats of primer to get good coverage, it's worth it, especially since primer is usually cheaper than paint.

I just decided to use a regular paintbrush, not a roller or a foam brush. I tried to keep my brushstrokes going up-and-down on the long panel parts of the door, and I tried to keep my brushstrokes going side to side on the top, middle, and bottom "crosspieces" of the door. Even with the primer, I paid attention to keeping the brushstrokes neat, since the brushstrokes provide a bit of texture that might be visible.

Even though the internet DIY-ers didn't seem to have advice for my specific type of front door finish, it did seem like everybody had a favorite kind of paint. The one everybody kept taking about is Glidden Door & Trim paint. 

I bought a quart, and I got it from Walmart. Since I was only painting the outside-side of one door, one quart was way more than plenty. Again, it's a latex paint, so, easy clean-up, and I got the one that's high-gloss.

Word to the wise: if you're using this on an exterior door, double-check to make sure that the paint you buy says "exterior" or "interior/exterior" ... because I was surprised to find that interior-only door and trim paints look almost the same.

I was really happy with the very glossy, shiny finish of the paint, and I put on two or three coats of this paint. Obviously, this project spanned multiple days to allow dry-time between coats, but it was so worth it to get the front door looking so shiny and new.

So, if you happen to have a metal front door with a flaking finish, I hope you'll be encouraged that you can paint it and get it looking amazing again. 

I've been so pleased that this door has held up for three solid years, even facing the unrelenting afternoon sunshine. And after all this time, I've only found one single tiny chip in the paint, and that was easily fixed with a dot of the same paint.

Interestingly, the inside-facing side of the door has the same wood-look finish. But, not being exposed to the weather, it wasn't worn or damaged at all. So I left the inside-facing side of the door alone and didn't do anything to it.

Later on -- this year, in fact, I decided to paint our house number on the door. I had bought a can of the same Glidden paint in high-gloss black for another project. (The other project was that I painted my mailbox ... maybe I'll blog about that one of these days.) 

So it was the perfect thing to use to paint numbers on the door. (If I were to use another brand or kind of paint, I would worry about the two kinds of paint interacting badly with each other. The matching paint in another color was the perfect thing.)

So, now you know. I painted my metal front door. Even though it had a textured finish that was worn out. I love the new look, and I've been really happy with the results.