Painting doors is a cinch but can be quite intimidating. Many homeowners find it difficult because they don’t know the proper process of painting their wood closet doors. This is why the question has been asked more frequently- how to paint fake wood closet doors?
When it’s about painting fake wood closet doors, you cannot help thinking of laminate and faux doors. Though both laminate and faux doors look like they are made of wood, they are not. Laminate doors comprise thin layers of plastic resins and flat paper whereas faux wood is made of composite, fiberglass, and steel.
This article will guide you thoroughly to the ways to paint your fake wood closet doors professionally and DIY. Let’s get started!
7 Best Ways To Paint Fake Wood Closet Doors: Decor By Yourself
If you have the right paint, equipment, and color shades, you can paint on both laminate and faux doors that can substitute your wood closet doors. You can paint your fake wood closet doors professionally or DIY. The following 10 steps would help you to know the painting process hands down. Let’s dive Into it!
The following utensils that you need to paint your fake wood closet door. Before painting wood closet door processing, you should have to ensure them first. Let’s take a look at them:
1. Things That You Require Before Painting Your Fake Wood/Laminate Closet Doors:
- Tablecloth, Drop Cloth, And The Newspaper
- Sandpaper ( medium size)
- Tack Cloth
- Sanding Block
- Primer
- Paper Towels
- Acrylic Paint
- Acrylic Sealer
- Paintbrushes
- Wood Grain Rocker
2. Choose A Color For Your Closet Door That Matches With Your Room:
If your closet door’s color complements your room, it entirely sparks up your home’s decor. So, it’s a must to match the color of your room with your closet doors.
- The Color Wheel:
There are two types of color – primary and secondary. The primary colors are yellow, red, and blue. On the flip side, the secondary color comprises a mixture of two primary colors together.
There are three patterns of color – the first one combines blue and red to make purple, and the second one combines yellow and blue to make green. The last one combines red and yellow to produce orange.
These primary and secondary colors are called the color wheel. You can choose a pattern for your closet door that complements your room.
- Monochromatic Schemes:
While painting a fake closet door, choose a color with different shades that will define your room best. The same category of colors always defines each other to give your room a fresh look.
- Color Tones:
For your closet door, blue and red can be the best-suited colors that are considered warm colors. These color tones can be soothing for your wood closet doors. So, you need to be selective in terms of color tones.
- Muted Color:
Colors that are related to human psychology come with comfort and elegance. When it’s about the closet door painting, you need to think of the same class of color that complements your entire house.
You should have a go with a muted color that can spark up your wood closet door including your home’s decor. So, you should be wise to choose the right subdued color.
- Neutral Color:
Color should always be neutral while painting your fake wood closet door. Creams, grays, and browns are counted in neutral colors. These colors can go with any other colors to illuminate your closet doors and home’s decor three to four times more.
3. Prepare Your Closet Door Before Painting:
Before painting your closet door, you need to prepare your closet door first. If you can execute the following things, your closet door will be looking more professional and durable than ever. Let’s have a look at the things that you need to prepare your closet door’s surface for painting:
- Take off the hinges from your door before painting.
- Then set two sawhorses on it that will help you paint the bottom and top part of the door hands down.
- Before painting, prepare the surface.
- Sanding the door will help you prepare your closet door to paint.
- Be mindful of your hardware and doorknobs.
- With masking tape, you can cover your metal fixtures before the painting process.
4. Sanding:
Once you are done with preparing your closet door, now you need to sand your closet door to make it ready for painting. Fake wood closet door’s surface can be peeled off even with paint due to its slippery surface. The following things will help you complete the sanding process. Let’s take a look –
- With 120 grit sandpaper, you can sand the surface of the door gently. You don’t need to do away with the old finish.
- Sanding will make the closet surface rough or uneven and it is not ideal to paint on this surface.
- Once you are done with sanding, wash the closet door now with a detergent. Take a damp cloth to clean the surface and then let it dry for a while.
5. Remove Dirt And Oil:
After the sanding process, you need to do away with the dirt and oil, right? If your closet surface has dirt and oil and you paint the closet door along these, the painting would be peeled off. The following points will tell you how you can get rid of the dirt and oil. Here we go!
- Use parts cleaner sold to remove oil and dirt.
- Dirt and oil will come off the closet surface.
- Now wipe them and let the surface dry.
6. Apply Primer:
After getting rid of oil and dirt from your closet door, now you need to apply primer on it before jumping into the painting process. Let’s take a look at the following things about how primer works for your closet:
- Using a primer will make stickiness stronger between base and paint.
- Use a primer coat to transform the door color to a light shade.
- If your closet door is of wood, metal, or plastic, then you are highly recommended to apply acrylic primer with a paintbrush.
- Choose a gray or white color that complements the closet door best.
- Acrylic primer takes around twenty minutes or less than that to dry.
7. Paint:
After sanding, and applying primer, finally, you can paint your fake wood closet door. The painting process below will help you to complete the painting process. Let’s look at a glance –
- Use a roller to reach the surface while painting the closet door.
- While painting, you need to be careful about the wood grain to ensure painting that brings a fresh look to the grain.
- Painting vertically from the center helps you reach the areas to be painted hands down.
- You need to add Wet Edge Extender with latex paint to dry the paint fast while working on other parts of the door.
- To paint the middle part of the door easily, start with the rails horizontally.
- Then paint the stiles from the upper parts to the bottom parts vertically.
- With a roller or brush, you can paint horizontally top to bottom of the panels and outward part of the styles of the closet door.
- Using a roller, paint a thin layer along the closet door’s edge.
- Once the first coat is done, make sure the coat is dried.
- Then you apply the second coat to your closet door.
- You can speed up the coating process in the case of flat doors by using a roller.
- Ensure the paint is applied to all areas of the closet door’s surface equally.
- Now make sure both sides of the closet door are painted.
5 Simple Steps To Paint the Inside Of Bare Wood Closet Doors:
There are five steps that you can follow to paint the inside of your cabinet doors that are bare wood:
Step 1- Sand The Surface:
With 150 grit sandpaper, sand your cabinet doors inside first. Then Vacuum the dust and wipe out the surface.
Step 2- Seal The Knots:
Applying coats is of no use if your cabinet door has knots. Knots can spoil your cabinet’s finish. That’s why you need to seal the knots with a prime.
Step 3- Smooth The Surface:
As bare wood soaks up the paint, one or two coats might not bring a noticeable change. You can use a primer that is dedicated to filling grain to make the surface smooth for the paint.
Step 4- Consider Tinted Primer:
It’s recommended considering the tinted primer that helps retain 50 percent primer. You can apply bright or dark color paint over the tinted primer.
Step 5- Choose The Right Base For Your Color:
While painting, experts suggest choosing the right base for your color before tinting primer. For cabinet doors with bare wood, you need more than two coats to paint.
In this case, the grain opens up even after the first or second coat. Then you need to apply the third coat that will give your cabinet door a glossy look. The last coat would take around one hour less than the initial coat.
Specifications That Make Fake Wood Closet Door Painting Standout:
The following table expounds on a painted fake wood closet door’s durability, longevity, cost, and maintenance.
| Criteria | Painting Fake Wood Closet Doors |
| Durability | Extremely durable. |
| Longevity | 5 to 10 years |
| Cost | $15 to $50 per gallon and labor cost $20 to $50 per hour. You can do it with your budget as well. |
| Maintenance | Easy to repair and low maintenance required. |
Frequently Asked Questions:
Types Of Fake Wood That You Can Use To Make Your Closet Doors:
Among the fake woods, laminate, and faux wood are the ones that you can use to make your closet doors. Though they are not the pure essence of wood, they are extremely durable (5-10 years) and pretty cheap. Apart from their durability, painting a fake wood closet door by yourself is a cinch. You need low maintenance for this kind of fake wood.
Can You Paint Fake Wood Closet Doors?
With some handy utensils, proper paint, and color shades, you can paint your fake wood closet doors. As fake wood closet doors are of processed materials, you can give them a real look like wood closet doors with the right painting. Laminate and faux doors are the ones on which this kind of paint goes well.
What Paint Will Stick To Fake Wood?
Stickiness and fake wood both are closely related to each other. The laminate closet door’s surface is slippery and it’s highly recommended to apply acrylic latex paint to the laminate door to make it more sticky, smooth, and durable. It’ll give the closet a classy bright color as well.
Can You Paint Fake Wood Laminate?
Sometimes you do things to tighten your budget. But it’s not always an ideal thing to do, right?. The same word goes for the laminate wood painting. You can paint fake laminate.
It’s pretty easy to paint a fake wood laminate closet door like solid wood as a transient solution. But if you are looking for a satisfactory solution, you can move to the permanent one.
How Can You Paint A Faux Wood Closet Door?
With a wood grain rocker, you can paint your faux wood closet door. Provided you have the right equipment, you can paint fake wood as well. You can use acrylic latex paint to paint your faux wood like the laminate wood that will make your wood sustainable and smooth.
What Kind Of Paint Is For Closet Doors?
It’s recommended to use satin paint for closet doors. Semi-gloss color or flat color complements the wall’s color as well. But satin paint will hide your closet’s marks, scuffs, and streaks like semi-gloss color.
Should You Paint Closet Doors To Match The Walls?
The color of your closet doesn’t have to be the same as your wall’s color. But you can pick any color or style that you want to be on your closet or wall.
But it wouldn’t be a bad choice either to keep your room’s or door’s color the same as the outside of your house. Because, while your guests are entering your house, the outward color of your house first grabs their attention.
But if you paint the inside house in one color including the closet door and a different color for your exterior, it wouldn’t be nice. So, it’s better to go with the same color for the interior and exterior. In addition, you can always paint with light or white or neutral color that contrasts your home decor multiple times more.
Can You Paint Fake Wood Cabinets?
You can paint your fake wood cabinets with prime sealer by using a quality brush that has synthetic bristles. You can prime and paint your fake wood cabinets. With gloss or semigloss paint, you can apply your finish paint.
5 Tips To Paint Your Fake Wood Closet Door:
Here are the five tips that will help you paint your closet door hands down. Let’s go there!
Tips-1: Purchase good quality materials tools that will make your job cinch.
Tips-2: With a paint sprayer, you can save time. It will ensure a beautiful finish as well.
Tips-3: Applying thick coats can be time-consuming because it takes time to dry. But Light paint can take less time to dry. So, consider light painting.
Tips-4: Sand the surface with 120 grit sandpaper to make the surface prepared and then apply primer and sand the surface with 220 grit sandpaper again.
Tips-5: With a screwdriver remove the doorknob to make the painting process easy.
Final Verdict:
The right painting with color shades and required equipment can make your fake wood closet doors’ painting aesthetic. You can find an expert to paint your fake wood closet door. I hope the article gives you a complete insight into painting fake wood closet doors. To learn more, click here.
If you have further questions, please drop your comment below in the box. I’ll go through your comments soon.