Updating Old Hollow-Core Interior Doors

Things are coming along you guys! This week we have gotten all the outlets and vent covers repainted and put back up. I am putting the last few top coats on the cabinets and we got the plumbing leak fixed. The floor and counter guys are supposed to come in the next week, and then we can put the sink and pendant in. It feels like we keep saying we're so close to moving in because I say it every time, but now we seriously are. Waiting on other people just stinks because you have to work around their schedule. Thankfully, the Internet guy is coming tomorrow, so I can watch Netflix while doing stuff. 

Does anyone else have an old house with old doors? Yeah, I'm talking about those cheap hollow-core doors that have yellowed over they years but you don't want to spend the money to replace them. Well, that's where we're at. Interior doors aren't as expensive as exterior doors, but they are still too expensive for us right now (this one at Home Depot is beautiful). So we decided to skip the new stuff and just revamp our old stuff. The process was pretty simple; we just painted the doors, painted the knobs, and then painted the faux-knob housing. The inspiration behind painting the knobs to look like they were sitting on plates was this knob at Home Depot. After I put the knobs back on the plain white door, it just looked like a painted hollow-core door. With the faux-plates, it looks just a little bit nicer and livable until we can afford to really invest in good doors and knobs. We used Sherwin William's Extra-White trim paint in semi-gloss, the same stuff we used for the trim. I picked up some black matte spray paint and a top coat for $10. Here are the steps we went through, and you can to, to update your old hollow core doors.

1. Paint the doors. Obviously.

2. Paint the knobs with color and top coat. Taking them off the doors will make it 10x's easier. I used some spray paint I picked up at Home Depot for $10.

3. Make a template: Tape the rectangle where you want it around the knob. Transfer the taped rectangle to a piece of cardboard and cut along the inside edge. This way you get the same size for every single knob; consistency.

4. Trace the template on the door.

5. Re-tape around the pencil outline. If you don't, it will look like the picture below where the paint drifted under the template. You live and you learn, ya know.

6. Place template back over the tape, and spray paint the area. You put the template back up so that the excess pain doesn't get on the rest of the door.

7. Tape off the latch, and spray paint it to match.

8. After about 10-15 minutes, the paint will still be tacky, peel the tape off at a 45° angle so you get a good clean line. And viola!

And you're done! An easy and cheap way to update your old hollow-core doors that have been worn down over the years. The whole process took us about 2 days, but if you've got a Saturday, it would probably take 3 or so work hours between all the drying. I am really happy with how they've turned out and how much they make the house feel not so dumpy. Now they aren't that yellow-y white they were before, phew. It is not a perfect fix and it is certainly not a permanent one, but it makes it more enjoyable. If you don't like the faux knob plates, just repaint your knobs and door. Any update is better than no update. If you take on the project of updating your doors, let me know how it turns out!