By painting your garage door, you can improve your house’s look by leaps and bounds. So, it’s only natural that you want to paint your garage door. But recently, people have been using vinyl garage doors more and more. So, the question arises: can you paint a vinyl garage door?
Simply put, yes, you can paint your vinyl garage door. The process is relatively straightforward too. It would be best if you prepped the door by cleaning and priming it. And when the prep work is done, you can move on to the painting phase.
However, remember that not every type of paint is suitable for vinyl doors. Try to stick to water-based paints like acrylic paint and avoid lower-cost latex paints.
How to Paint A Vinyl Garage Door?
Most of the process is doing the prep work. The better you prepare the door, the better the paint job. It’s not much of a difficult task, as you’ll see as we walk you through the process.
Mind Your Surroundings
It’s essential that you first ensure the safety of the surrounding space. You don’t want to end up with a paint-stained driveway when you’ve spent hours trying to improve your house’s look.
Or maybe it’s Christmas time, and instead of making your home a jolly ol’ shindig, you end up with a green Santa!
To avoid these circumstances, firstly, you must lay down a protective drop cloth to protect your driveway. Then you’ll need painter’s tape to block off the areas you don’t want the paint to spread. And if there are plants, trinkets, or any other decorations nearby, if you can’t move them, cover them up with a drop cloth or plastic.
Prep the Surface
Before you get to the painting process, you must ensure that the paint sticks to the surface. To do that, you must take care of any surface dirt, dust, or grime.
So, take a soft sponge and dip it in soapy water. Use the sponge to scrub every inch of the door’s surface to remove the paint from your garage door. That should take care of any of the residues. Now let it dry.
Once the door has dried, use light grit sandpaper to buff the door. That way, there will be no protrusions on the door’s surface to get in the way of your painting process.
Apply Primer
Priming the door may sound like an extra step, but it’s necessary. By priming the surface, you’re giving the new paint a flat base so it can easily stick onto the door’s surface.
By simply applying a primer, you can also significantly increase the durability of the paint.
Paint the Hard-to-Reach Places
You can finally get to the painting process after you’ve done your prep work.
There should be several nooks and crannies on your garage door, which can be hard to paint with a spray. So, take up a handheld paint brush to paint those areas.
Make sure to use a brush with which you’re comfortable. If needed, try using brushes of different sizes to cover all the spots.
Paint the Door
Once you’ve taken care of all the hard-to-reach places, it’s smooth sailing. You can either use a roller brush or spray paint.
Start with the side facing the inside and once you’ve finished painting the home-facing side, move on to the side facing the street with exterior paint.
Let It Dry
After you’ve applied the paint, it’s time to let the paint dry. Depending on the weather, it should take around 12-24 hours to dry. If the weather is humid, you’ll probably want to leave the door for a whole day to dry.
During this time, keep your vehicles away from the door. You’ll also want to park your bikes and cars outside during this period to get the best result possible.
Your Paint of Choice
As you may already know, you need to pick the appropriate type of paint to have a good result. If you don’t do so, the new color may do more harm than good.
When painting a Vinyl surface, your best bet is to use water-based paint like Acrylic paint. That’s because acrylic paint has a high ductility rating, allowing it to expand and contract depending on the temperature changes.
On the other hand, semi-gloss latex paints aren’t said to be the most flexible paints. So, your paint job will fall apart within months as the lower-quality oil-based paint will crack and peel under pressure.
Final Words
As you can see, the process of painting your garage door is a relatively simple one. The only thing you need to be wary about is choosing the paint. But if you follow our step-by-step guide, you should have no difficulties, even if you want to paint your metal garage door.
So, can you paint a vinyl garage door? Hope this answers your question and covers the whole process. Have a nice day!
