Faux Painting And Murals: Garage Door Tutorial

Faux Painting a Garage Door to Look Like Wood Tutorial.

Many people have written to me asking about the procedure to faux paint their garage door to look like wood. This short tutorial explains as best I can the way I go about it. I have successfully painted dozens of garage doors using this technique.

You have to clean the door first. Garage doors are like any other painting project in that surface preparation is very important and only use 100% acrylic latex paint, (never use an oil based product. Using an oil based product on a steel garage door will void the warrenty.) I use ammonia and water to scrub the door. If the door is real chalky I scrub it twice, then rinse thoroughly wait for it to dry totally. Don't skip this step. Any garage door that is exposed to the outside will be dirty.

When the garage door is brand new I wipe it down with a rag and mineral spirits. Reason being that even though you might not be able to tell it the door has some sort of coating on it some kind of thin oily coating so it won't rust. After a few years this will evaporate off but when they are new there is something there. So use a little mineral spirits and a rag and wipe down the door. Then take some ammonia and water and a scrub brush and clean the door good with that. Now your door surface should be clean and free of contaminates.

Say you are starting on a garage door that is about 12 years old and has been painted already the color of the house with regular house paint. It might be very chalky by now. So what I do in that case is scrub the door down with a heavy solution of ammonia and water. Sometimes I have to go over a door 2 or 3 times to get all the chalkiness off of it before I prime, but once clean then the painting can begin. Even if there is a very little chalkiness you can prime as the primer will take a little bit of chalkiness fine. Which is explained on the can. Primers that work well are Benjamin-Moore Freshstart or Sherwin Williams multipurpose primer or Zinsser Waterbased 123.

Some starting issues;

What I recommend is if you have never tired anything like this before use a sample board to get the stroke down and play with it first.

Typically I put a drop cloth down in front of the garage door so paint drips will not spoil the driveway and pavers. Best way to do this is to raise the garage door put the drop down so that about a foot of it is in the garage. Then lower the door on top of the drop.

One other issue before starting is working in direct sunlight. If the sun is shining directly on the door it is very, very difficult to paint a faux wood grain. Maybe if its cool out or cold it might work but even after all the doors I have painted it is very hard to work in direct sunlight and I would not recommend it unless you have a lot of experience. I have literally seen steam coming off the end of my brush as I make a stroke from the door being so hot. If I have to work on a door that has the sun on it I rig up some shade somehow. As you see in the photo below I can cover about half the door at time. I worked on this door in November of 2011.

Also, before you start there is the issue of the weather strip that typically goes around the door. This strip can cover up to almost 2 inches of the perimeter of the door. Most times when the door is painted that area is not painted, but when you raise the door you can see a white strip there on both sides of the door. I usually do not paint it unless the client really wants me too in that case I charge extra.

You can take that weather strip off to paint the door and then reinstall it after you are done. To do that you have to use a utility knife to cut thru the calking where the strip meets the wall of the door opening of the house. Then I typically use a screw driver and a hammer and pry off the weather strip. When you put it back on you caulk it again and paint it the same color it was or you can paint it wood grain like the garage door. This is a pretty big hassle and I usually do not do this.

What I usually do however is make the door go up after I have finished painting the wood grain and the door is done. Now a lot of the times you will not have very much clearance when the door is up between the door and the ceiling of the garage but there is always just enough to get on a ladder and paint in that white perimeter strip. What you can do if the space is small is cut off the handle of a brush so it will fit easily in the space. I have to turn my head sideways a lot of the time to get a look but its pretty easy. Now I paint that space in with a mix of the first wood grain brown color and the darker black/brown color. I don’t bother to try and wood grain it as no sees it until the door goes up and you only see it at the top of the opening for a brief second anyway.

Ok, so now the door is clean so next is the primer.

I use ‘Fresh Start’ primer by Benjamin Moore or the Sherwin William 'Multipurpose' or the Zinsser bin123 waterbased. They all make a deep tint base which is good because you can have it tinted to the basecoat color. I only prime the door if it has not been painted before. If the garage door is already painted I do not prime it unless its been a few years.

I use the Sherwin-Williams exterior Superpaint, a fantastic 100% acrylic latex paint product. Only use a paint that is 100% acrylic latex.

I usually paint a garage door to look like mahogany, cherry or walnut.

The base color I want for a mahogany door is a Sherwin-Williams color called Tatami Tan and the wood grain color is Fiery Brown. For a walnut colored door I use SW paint called Toasty for the base and Java for the brown. For a cherry wood door I use a Sherwin Williams color True penny its like a pumkin color and Fiery Brown for the wood grain. Here is a door like that http://fauxpaintingartist.blogspot.com/2006/09/garage-doors-finished.html .

So what I do is

get the primer deep base tint tinted to the basecoat color and prime it

and then use the superpaint paint to paint it the basecoat color.

I only use a brush to paint on the garage door. I never use a roller. The reason is a roller will impose a texture on the door you don’t want there. It is just the nature of a roller to add some texture however slight to the surface its used on. So only use a brush and the job will come out much better and be easier to paint because the drag on a brush from the texture of a roller will make the job that much more difficult.

After the primer has dried and basecoat has dried I begin the wood graining.

I use a lot of tape when painting a garage door. I start by taping off each panel. It is very important to use the blue tape that is for delicate surfaces. The blue tape for delicate surfaces will have the orange center as sold at home depot. Or you can use the yellow frog tape sold at Sherwin-williams stores.

In the next two photos you can see how I tape off the panels.

Then here with the first coat of brown painted on the panels.

Here with the second coat painted on. You can see how much richer it looks after the second coat.

Then I tape off the center vertical pieces and paint them.

Lastly I paint in the horizontal spaces between the panels.

But actually the very last thing before applying the clear uv top coat is to do what I call 'picture framing' the panels. By that I mean I use the darker paint mix and go around the beveled edges of the panels with another pass. You can see below how that looks and it makes a huge difference in the final look of the door.

I use a paint tray to work out of. I have two pint sized plastic containers in the tray. One will have the paint in it and the other water. I use the water to thin the paint when needed. Then I apply the first coat of brown paint which in the case case for a Mahogany door is the Fiery Brown from S-W.

Youtube video 1 of about 6 minutes first color of brown http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvhKIq4A_LU

The videos here are not great at all and I realize that. More to see how I do it than to see the actual results. I taped them myself and really you need to shoot an over the shoulder shot to get a good look at the technique. Maybe someday I will have someone do that.

I put very little paint on the brush. Dip the brush in the paint about an inch and a half then as you take the brush out of the tray wipe off the paint on both sides of the brush so it goes back into the tray. Most times people will just wipe off one side of the brush but you really don't want too much paint on the brush. You want very little paint. I usually dab the brush in the top part of the tray and then get a little water on it to thin it out before I make a stroke.

When you apply the paint you want to push against the surface to spread out the bristles of the brush. Then you can make your stroke. When wood graining you want to see the brush strokes, that is what makes it look like wood grain. Try to make each panel a little different. Don't make all the grain lines go exactly horizontal or vertical. Put a slant to them, some panels will have an upward bias and some downward. You know the wood grain will not be perfectly straight. What you are trying to do is put a thin veil or glaze of the paint color over the base coat so you don't want it to be very solid. The more paint you use the darker the final product will be.

After that has dried I mix some black or a very, very dark brown called black bean soup into the brown I do this in a seperate container and mix about a 50-50 ratio. I thin this way down with the water as I apply it. Then I apply this the same way over the first coat but the big difference is you only want a very thin glaze of the dark over what you have already done.

Youtube video 2 about 5 minutes second color of black plus brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNKyrWM2FrU

Here's the thing this is where you can play with how dark you want the door to be, the more you thin the colors the lighter the wood tone. I do a look that is a two tone look where the center panels are dark and the surrounding wood is light. It is a fantastic look and to achieve it you need to thin the paint way down to get the lighter color wood tone.

Now when you have finished the door there is one final step I like to do before I put a clear top coat over the whole thing. And that is to go around and 'picture frame' the panels. So the beveled part of the center panels gets one final coat of the darker mix just the around the perimeter of each panel. If you do a two-tone look you can skip this part.

So if you want then the last thing is to put a clear coat of Master Clear over the door.

Modern Masters makes the product called masterclear http://modernmasters.com/product_details.aspx?prod=04&pl=MPC Disney uses a lot of the masterclear on their paint projects because it holds up so well. On their tech sheet it says the product withstands 3,000 scrub cycles (whatever that means) Modern Masters has a great product line I use a lot of their products. Here’s the thing however, you want to make sure the paint is totally dry before applying the masterclear. I wait 24 hours and apply the masterclear and have never had a problem.

For a single or even a double garage door it will take less than one quart of paint for each color. The paint goes a long way. I can usually get 2 or 3 doors out of a quart.

Here is a two-tone garage door I did. I really like this look.

http://fauxpaintingartist.blogspot.com/2008/06/garage-door-painted-like-wood.html

Steel garage doors are rarely smooth. They come with a wood grain embossed on them. This grain pattern runs horizontal across the width of the door. However, if a garage door where really made of wood, the piece of wood between the panels would be a vertical grain piece. This next link has some pictures to show you how I tape off and paint the vertical parts of the panels. You might have to scroll to get to the garage door.

http://www.fauxpaintingandmurals.com/2007/04/garage-door-faux-wood-grained.html

Good luck with the door.

A word about brush vs roller for primer and base.

I like to use a brush for everything on a garage door. Here's the reason why. I used to roll the primer and base on but even a small nap roller will put a slight texture on the smooth surface of the door. I realize that the door probably has the faux 'grain' embossed on it but if its new and by that I mean most likely white, when you run your hand across it it will be smooth.

When you use a roller it puts a very slight texture on the door. You might not think it matters but it does because after the primer and base are rolled then you use a brush for the wood grain it makes the brush drag across the door because the texture put on the door acts as a grip on the brush.

You can test this out for yourself by rolling on a panel and brushing a panel with both the primer and base. Then when you go to faux grain the door you will notice a difference on much easier it is to paint over the brushed on prmier and base. Of course you brush the primer and base on in the same direction that you will brushing the grain pattern on.

Here's some photos of the garage doors from the videos. First one is a shot of them primed and basecoated. Then a shot with all the panels done. Then the finished doors.