Although we believe our range of wood effect panels, coloured panels, glass panels and mirrored panels will provide a wide enough range of wardrobe door choice to meet most customers’ requirements, once in a while we are asked whether our sliding wardrobe doors can be painted, wallpapered, or can have fabric or adhesive stickers and wall art decals applied to customise or update their wardrobe doors. In this article we offer an insight into some of the possible ‘design your own’ options to cover sliding wardrobe doors.
How to paint wardrobe doors
Matte white wood panel doors, with some simple initial preparation, is the most cost-effective and best surface for painting wardrobe doors. You can order these from Wardrobe Doors Direct.
Painting your wardrobe doors allows you to use your imagination and design skills to match your room design. With a little preparation it is easy to decorate your wardrobe doors to your own design.
We recommend that you follow the paint manufacturer’s guidelines when preparing and painting your sliding wardrobe doors but below we offer a general guide to achieve the best results for painting melamine wardrobe doors.
1) Use melamine paint which is specially formulated for use in covering Melamine Faced Chipboard (MFC). MFC paints are available in two main formulations. The first consists of a base coat or primer and then to paint your melamine wardrobes an MFC top coat or finishing coat. The second option is to use an MFC primer which allows for a water-based or solvent-based undercoat to be applied. Afterwards you can paint on the top coat of your choice. MFC primers and MFC top coats are available at all good DIY stores and are relatively inexpensive and easy to apply.
2) Before applying the MFC base coat it is advisable to give the door panel a light sanding with a fine grade sandpaper to give the surface a slight key. Even though the melemine panel is described as ‘matte white’ there is a slight sheen to the surface and a light sanding will remove this.
3) Once you have sanded all sides and edges to be painted we recommend that you wipe the door down with sugar soap and a soft cloth to clean and degrease the panels.
4) Prior to painting the door panels you can either mask the door frames with masking tape or take the doors apart. The doors are relatively simple to dis-assemble and put back together, however, we recommend reading the following article prior to dis-assembling your doors: How our sliding wardrobe doors are put together – coming soon. Please note: Wardrobe Doors Direct will not be held responsible for any damage or subsequent malfunction of the doors should you decide to take the doors apart.
5) Depending on the finish you require and the type of paint you decide to use it is possible to either spray paint the wardrobe doors with the final coat or use a small foam roller, which will produce a smooth, brushstroke-free finish. If you want to achieve a perfectly flat gloss finish it may be worth talking to your local garage/car bodyshop to see if they can spray paint the doors for you and finish them with a lacquer top coat.
Normal wallpaper paste can be used and application method for wallpapering wardrobe doors is the same as for wallpapering a wall, just follow the wallpaper paste manufacturer’s instructions.