Painting garage doors

The garage door is often the largest painted surface on a façade, and the most forgotten. Steel up-and-over, sectional, or timber side-hinged: all take our Multi-Surface paints, Satin (40%) for smooth metal that hoses clean, Eggshell (15%) for wood you want matt and quiet, Gloss (85%) to match a lacquered front door, Dead Matt (5%) to make it disappear. On metal our Multi-Surface Primer is essential; on wood, it is needed on bare timber.

The rule is simple: the garage door in the tone of the windows and shutters, or of the front door, never a third colour. Woodnight, Artillery Ground or Downing Street make it disappear; Market Green or Blueprint tie it to a green or blue front door; a Cadogan Stone in the render's tone melts it into the wall.

Recommended finishes

Garage door

Multi-Surface Dead Matt Multi-Surface Eggshell Multi-Surface Satin Multi-Surface Gloss

Primer

Multi-Surface Primer

Our advice

A garage door, done well

Metal degreased and primed, wood sanded, and a foam roller for the big panels: the largest door in the house is painted in a day.

Degreased, sanded, undercoated: the paint will hold on the steel.

Prepare

Degrease the metal, sand the wood

A steel door is covered in an invisible greasy film: wash it with degreaser, rinse, let it dry. Steel-wool rust spots back to sound metal, sand the whole surface with 180 grit to dull the factory paint, dust off. On a new galvanised door the fine sanding matters even more: nothing grips smooth zinc.

Apply our Multi-Surface Primer over the whole of a steel door, and on the bare wood of a side-hinged door sanded with 120 then 180; choose the tint matched to the colour, dark grey under Woodnight or Downing Street. Mask the handle, lock and rubber seals, and fix the door open or shut for the day.

Woodnight on the garage doors and shutters, Cadogan Stone on the façade.

Paint

Foam roller for the panels, brush for the ribs

In dry weather, out of direct sun, between 10 and 25 °C: a steel door in the sun becomes scorching and the paint dries before it can be laid off. Cut in ribs, mouldings and edges with a 40 mm brush, then paint the panels with a 10 cm foam roller, laying each panel off with a wide brush while it is still wet. Two thin coats of Multi-Surface Satin, 3–4 hours apart.

On a sectional door, paint one section at a time with the door shut, keeping paint out of the joints so it keeps articulating. Do not operate it for 24 hours, and no washing for a week. Woodnight on the garage door, Woodnight on the shutters, Cadogan Stone on the render: the whole façade holds in two colours.