The Best Trick for Painting French Doors
A quick tip for painting French doors without scraping, taping, or splotchy peeling paint. This trick saves SO much time and looks amazing like a factory finish!
This post has me singing a theme song courtesy of Coolio.
Been painting most our lives living in a French door paradise.
Because there are so. many. French. doors. in. this. house.
They made me fall in love with this place. The minute I walked into the living room on our first tour, I knew those pretty doors needed to be mine.
But then… we had a fight, those doors and I. Because painting the 8 French doors in that room took dayyyyyys of taping and scoring and scraping and maybe a little bit of cursing.
They sure turned out pretty. It was just a laborious process to get there.
(Some affiliate links are provided below. Check out my full disclosure here.)
So this time, now that we’re embarking on a new makeover adventure in the playroom, I was determined to find any way to avoid scraping more French doors for hours and hours all over again.
I almost went as far as to hire professional painters to come in and just paint the room, doors and all, for us, buuuuut it was going to cost $750 so that was a big ol’ NOPE.
But then I found the BEST trick ever! And it’s actually really fun to do. Yeah, I said fun. I know, that’s nuts.
This was where I left off with you guys when I shared all of our big playroom plans.
This pair of brown French doors on either side of the playroom fireplace:
And this set of French doors leading into the playroom from the living room that were still beigey-white on the inside:
We’ve since painted the walls with leftover Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee from our living room to eliminate the yellow and the beigey trim is now Benjamin Moore Simply White.
But the beige and brown on the doors still had to go.
Pardon the dimly lit evening/nighttime photos for this one. #WinterProblems (P.S. You like Olivia’s giant unicorn just chilling out watching TV in the living room?)
Here’s the magic: Masking Liquid H20.
*I pinky promise this isn’t a sponsored post or anything like that. This was just one of those tricks that was too cool and time saving to keep to myself, if you happen to have French doors or windows needing a paint job. Just passing it along friend to friend.
Taping is tedious and makes paint peel. Scraping is time consuming and will drive you absolutely insane. But Masking Liquid is almost as cool as glitter slime. (I think my mom life is showing.)
I just used a 3″ angled brush to apply a thick layer to all of the glass window panes, which took me about 10-15 minutes per door.
It looks like glue at first and will start out looking white.
After a few hours, it dries to look like this clear film:
Then, just prime (if needed) and paint on whatever color you’d like. (I brushed on our go-to door color, Benjamin Moore Wrought Iron.)
Let the paint dry, and then score the edges of the window panes with a utility knife blade.
Peel back a corner of the film on the pane and remove it as it comes off in one sheet.
If you have French doors and you try it out, you’ll see what I mean. Totally fun! It’s as satisfying as those charcoal peel mask videos, only less gross. (What’s up with those?)
It only took me about 10 minutes to peel all of the window panes on one door without a single paint flaw. Whaaaat?!
It ends up looking like a factory finish! The playroom doors put our living room doors to shame now. Totally kicking myself for not finding this stuff sooner because what took me roughly 48 hours before took me all of 45 minutes this time around.
We still have a lot more progress to do in this playroom that is quickly coming together, so I should have another update on this space next week.
But can we just talk about that fireplace for a sec? I painted the mantel in Sherwin Williams Tree Swallow and it is just the sweetest color for a playroom. Right now, with that red brick though, it’s looking kind of 1980s Williamsburg Blue to me. But I still have more changes to make to it, if you’re thinking, “Ewww no. That’s weird.”
I’ll be sharing a few sneak peeks of some of our progress on my Instagram Stories in the meantime too.
Are you going on a painting frenzy in your house right now since so many of us are locked inside from the frigid cold. If the Carolinas actually get snow, I’m libel to have the entire playroom finished before it melts (which in Southerner speak means about 30 seconds). 😉
If you want to save this little tip for later, you can pin it here:
WOW!
I actually have been stripping doors, which with Citristrip takes all of an hour or two, depending upon how long I forget I have stripper on . LOVE the stuff and it’s fun.
That said, I picked up a French door that has fire damage, so I will patch that and paint it. I was dreading the window part, because 10 years later, I still have stain on the front door windows I can’t seem to scrape off. I haven’t even thought about starting to paint, because I was dreading it. Can you believe I’d rather strip a door than paint it?
Thanks so much for posting this.
Oh – I’m using SW Iron Ore and BM’s Dragon’s Breath for 17 casement windows on my back porch. Your beautiful black doors are very encouraging and brought my mental picture to life!
Wow 17 windows! You have your work cut out for you! Good luck and enjoy. I am sure they will be beautiful. 🙂
Get OUT!!! (Insert Elaine shoving Jerry here)
What an awesome tip. We just bought a 100 year old house with giant floor to ceiling multi-paned windows and several French doors that all need painting. Girl, you just saved me a lifetime of scraping!
PS – I’m in High Point, NC and we got almost 8 inches of snow yesterday. Perfect day to stay inside and enjoy the thrill of painting kitchen cabinets 😉
I wish I had known about this when I had French doors. They are truly a pain and this looks so very easy. Thanks for sharing this. I pinned it just in case I have French doors again someday! The playroom is looking good. Can’t wait to see what you do with the fireplace. Love the blue mantel!
Game changer!!!! Thank you so much!
That is so neat! Never knew this stuff existed.
Yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I need to paint the French doors to our pool area. This is awesome! (LOL, can you tell I’m excited?)
Great tip. I always enjoy any painting tip that makes life easier. Do you have to be really careful to not get the masking liquid on the panes?
What an awesome tip!! I have French doors that need a touch up since we painted after moving in. And that color on the fireplace!! Swooning!!
Thank you so much for the painting tip!! I have French doors that I’ve wanted to paint black for a long time. However, the thought of all that taping and possibly scraping left me tired before I even started! LOL. Now I don’t have an excuse!
No excuse! Get on it. 🙂 Glad to help.
I’ve seen that tip on Renovation Addict, but didn’t know exactly what stuff she used. Thanks! She used it outside and then it got cold and she had to scrape it off, so be careful where and when you use it.
I used to be an editor, and if you don’t mind a little hint, “I’m libel to” is spelled “I’m liable to.” Or you can say, “I’m likely to.” Libel is defaming a person in print.
Thank you for the tip. Your french doors are beautiful.
Hi, do you have to brush it over the whole pane of glass, or can you just do couple of inches around the edges where the paint will be?
I’m saving this tip! Thanks so much!!
Oh, how I wish I’d known this tip 3 months ago when I re-painted 3 rooms with french doors and 6 over 6 windows! What a terrific solution (and sanity saver, lol).
Question: on brand new doors that haven’t been painted yet, do I need to use primer, or just paint?
Karen, not sure if you will see this response, I happened to be scrolling through this awesome post and the comments. My humble recommendation is always use primer on bare/new wood. The new wood literally soaks paint in, so you will be saving yourself some money by using primer, and the finished product will look much nice as well. Hope this helped 🙂
Thank you so much! We are building right now. We have a set of French doors to paint. This will come in handy!
This came today and I am doing just this today!! eeekkkk…I’m so excited this is going to save me so much time!
Awesome, Lauren!!! Thank you for sharing this. I have 6 French Doors in my house that need to be painted and I’ve been putting it off because it would be so TIME CONSUMING! I’ll use this on my windows, too. Love this hack!~
Glad to help. Game changer and time saver definitely. 🙂
You have saved my sanity! Our house has 12 French doors…on the first floor alone. And they all need to be painted since I changed the wall colors during a renovation. I’ve been dreading the task, I can’t thank you enough ?
So glad it helped!!! I’d been dreading this room for that reason too.
Thanks for the tip! For the exterior French doors are the mullions plastic? The black paint you used stuck to that without a problem? Or did you need to prime?
Yes, they’re plastic, but I used Sherwin Williams Infinity paint (in semi-gloss), and it applied perfectly. I used primer on the beige doors, but only because they had oil base paint already on them. All of the other doors had latex, so I didn’t need primer for those.
Just wanted to say thanks for all the info. I am in love with your house!!! I have a very small house (with no French doors!), but many Windows. I will be using this stuff on all my doo rd etc! Anything to make the job easier?! Thanks again!
You are most welcome, Rita. Good luck and happy painting!!