Entrance door

[guildford]

Hi - first time owner and first time forum user

we have a georgian cottage with a softwood entrance door which the previous owners have varnished, but wearing off.

I want to restore this door and paint it red; can anyone advise what I need to do, should I sand or strip the varnish off; and is it aluminumum primer I should use to prevent any left over varnish coming up as yellow?

Many thanks :roll:

[thedoctor]

See our project on preparing woodwork for painting. Strip the varnish by going to our paint stripping project and then prime and coat as seen in the project

[Oddbod]

Hi, Just to add a bit ….. Generally speaking varnish is just paint without the colour – if you see what I mean. You’d be very unlucky if you didn’t get away with just sanding the existing varnish (to rough it up a little bit, not remove it), priming any bare wood, and then an undercoat and a couple of top-coats.