How to Paint Your Garage Door and Revive It
Your home has a life of its own. It shifts, cracks, sags, and ages. But it also protects your family and holds precious memories. As a homeowner, it is up to you to maintain and beautify your home in a way that reflects your personal preferences. As your life changes, so too does the state and look of your home. Your garage door is no exception.
Garage doors are built sturdy and are made to withstand the brutal elements. Because of this, they can start to show their wear and tear over time. An excellent and relatively easy solution for renewing the look of your garage door is a simple paint job. However, to achieve the best results, it is important to consider the factors that affect your door daily as well as how to properly strip, sand, clean and repaint it.
What Are the Steps For Painting Your Garage Door?
Most garage doors are steel and can be repainted if prepared properly. The surface must be cleaned and primed before painting.
1. Clean
Using a brush or sprayer (remember, think low-pressure or light bristles), clean the door with a detergent solution as thoroughly as possible.
2. Sand
Try to work out minor imperfections and scratches by hand-sanding them with fine sandpaper.
3. Prime
Remember to use a primer that blends well with your paint. More than one coat of primer will only help with the painting process.
4. Paint
Be sure to use as many coats as necessary to ensure that the structure of the door is protected.
Wooden doors can be painted or finished in a similar fashion. They must be sanded first, then cleaned, primed, and painted. Keep detergents away from wood, but be sure to remove excess wood shavings after sanding.
Weatherproof Your Garage Door
Think about where you live. Here in Austin, it’s sunny, dry, and blisteringly hot for most of the year. We don’t have to deal with storms very often. Also, snow is so rare that most people don’t even consider it when building and maintaining homes. The most dangerous element is the sun’s rays, and they can crack and warp any paint from car paint jobs to wooden siding.
Some regions, however, are plagued with incessant rain and excessive moisture. Wet weather can cause a lot of problems for garage doors and their paint. Some paints trap moisture and cause damage not only to the paint job but also to the structure of the building. Snow can also strip away color and weather rough edges.
What Paint Should You Use?
Select an exterior paint that can handle the weather in your area, especially if you want your garage door painted the same way for a long time. Exterior paint is usually oil or water based, and water based paint is either acrylic or latex. Primer, the coat of paint used to prepare your surface for painting, can also either be oil or water based.
Oil based primers and paints are hazardous to the environment and are being phased out for exterior use. While they perform well in dry, hot environments, you may want to consider a water based latex paint made for siding.
Latex paint spreads easily on steel garage doors, stands up well to extreme weather, and can be customized by the manufacturers to fit the needs of different climates. It also retains color very well, and in hot climates where the sun easily fades paint, color strength is vital.
For wooden garage doors, think about taking advantage of wood’s natural defenses against the elements and opt instead for a good finish.
You can retain the beauty of the wood and simplify maintenance by removing the finish or paint on the wood currently and refinishing with a few coats of a quality wood finish. While a finish can also fade, refinishing can revive the look of an ailing finish and provide a mild change of color.
If you’re looking to paint your wooden door, try a water-based latex paint made for porches. Porch paint can take a heavy beating from Mother Earth and can keep your garage door protected for a long, long time.
While it may seem like a lot of work, painting your garage door is essential to keeping all of the parts of your home squeaky clean. No matter what kind of garage door you have, there’s a way to restore it to its original beauty or even improve upon it.
