Refinishing our Front Door

Overview: This was definitely one of those "Needs to get done" projects that I have undertaken this year. The sun is such a wonderful thing but for wood, it is the worst! This is our front door and as you can see by the first picture, it is badly injured and needs help! It is a good thing that it called dajacreations to come to the rescue.

It has had many years of sun damage. Over all this was only a day project and was pretty simple. Once the back breaking work of sanding was done, the staining was EASY!

Notice the huge gray spot caused by sun damage. Also notice that you can't even see any of the wood grain. How sad!

This is after I had sanded the bottom 1/3 of the door. Such an amazing difference. I started out using a 60 Grit sandpaper on the whole door. I then went to a 100 Grit sandpaper and repeated the process. Lastly was the 150 Grit sandpaper which I once again sanded the whole door. It is important to do little circles when you sand so that everything is sanded uniformly.

This is the whole door sanded and ready for stain. Before staining I got an old towel and wiped down the door a few times to get all of the dust off.

I first used a pre-conditioner stain that was oil based because I used an oil based stain as well. I then brushed on the first coat of Pecan colored stain using a foam brush and let it dry for six hours. I repeated the process once more and.....

Tah dah! Look at how it turned out! The door is happier now! You can now see the grain patterns and there are some remnants of the dreaded sun damaged spot but the door is now more protected to do battle for years to come. The lesson to learn here is to not let your door or other outdoor furniture become deeply damaged by the sun as it may permanently scar it!

I hope you enjoyed this and it has given you some motivation to fix up that "old" piece of furniture to make it look brand new again. It is an easy process and will enhance any type of wood furniture you have.