Restoring an old Victorian door

Hi Guys,

I have a beautiful old Victorian door I want to restore and put on my house. Before I go for it, I thought I would ask some advice on best practices.

The external side of the door has what looks like peeing varnish while the other side is painted. My thoughts are:

1. Strip both sides of the door with paint stripper.
2. Fill holes and cracks.
3. Carefully sand with fine grit sandpaper.
4. Finish with polyurethane.

Does this sound like a reasonable plan that will give a good finish? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

A few specific question I have are:

1. Ideally, I would like a somewhat natural oiled look, I was thinking maybe a matte or satin polyurethane could achieve this? Does anyone have any product they could recommend?
2. Unfortunately, my door needs to switch the side of the hinges and locks. What would be the best way to fill the holes where the current locks are?
3. Any tips on stripping around the fine details would be appreciated (I was thinking paint stripper Ans steel wool).
4. Is there any chance paint stripper will stain or damage the wood?

Thanks in advance for all your help!


Attachment 504621
Attachment 504620

I would try and not move the lock and hinges.
What type of lock is it? Mortice or fitted externally? What type of lock do you want to use for 21st century requirements?
Could you move the hinge and lock on the door frame?

It is relatively easy to move a lock from the front to the back of the door, and for the hinges just make the mortices go from one face to the other.

These are just my thoughts, no doubt others will have other ideas.

Thanks for your response. Unfortunatly we really need the door to open the oposite way as it would clash with an internal door. It only has the cricket bats on the one side and so that really needs to be the external side.

Paint stripper should be perfectly fine to remove the old surface finishes. it’s just a lot of messy work and do it outside, and use gloves. Coarse grade steel wool will help clean it up. Use oxalic acid to clean the last residual muck off and then wash with warm soapy water, neutralise it all with metho. Once dry, sand using various grades of papers but ideally 120, 240 and finish off with 400. If it’s an external door. You could use something like marine spar, or similar marine based wood finish, Norseal, alwood or Epiphanes. Clear polyurethane will break down too quickly from uv exposure. For the inside I would either go with a shellac finish or alternatively a Tung oil based finish. Feast Watson make both a pure Tung oil finish or alternatively you could use their Floor Seal Oil product (Tung oil and other hardened oil blend). Both of these products are excellent.

Hi Max. Lovely door. It looks like it is made from cedar? Best repairs are to use same timber, with grain running in same direction but if you don't paint then patches will always be visible. Do you have a mortice lock down low? I am assuming the higher lock is the externally mounted deadlock that hangs off the inside of the door like a barnacle. Both of these leave smallish holes in the faces of the door.

Sorry Mountain Ash, I missed your response. I think I can live with a parch, doesn’t need to be perfect (will match my house better if it isn't haha).

I have removed the hardwear to better show what kind of patching I am looking at:

Attachment 507806

I could probably cut/sand an OK plug for the big round hole, the keyhole may take some finess.