Five tips on making your front door a grand entrance, from Richard Burr

handy too. Plastic dust sheet for your porch or hall. If someone opens your back door while the front door is open, you’ll pull a dust cloud through the house. If your door’s in particularly bad condition, use a two-part wood filler before undercoating. Do not use decorators caulk, as it’s not appropriate for front doors. Paint primer and an undercoat to prepare your surface. However, you won’t need both of these separately if you get a primer undercoat (more on that in a minute). Paint for the door. You’ll mostly use a two-inch synthetic bristle brush, but you’d be better off getting a paint brush set - they don’t cost much and you’ll need the one-inch brush for cutting-in windows if you have them. White spirit or brush cleaner for cleaning brushes. Stanley knife blade - very useful for cleaning spots of paint off glass - just don’t cut your fingers. my local suppliers Designer Colours (they colour-matched the primer undercoat for me, too) but it’s available at lots of other stores, as well. horizontal lengths of wood - ‘rails’ - that fit into vertical lengths called ‘stiles’. Often down the middle of a door, you’ll also have a length of wood called a ‘muntin’. If the door has them, paint the muntins first, using long, sweeping motions, then start ‘laying off ’ the paint using one long, continuous stroke back into the paint you’ve put on the door. Next, paint the rails. Once you’ve painted all the rails, you can paint the stiles, so that the edge where each rail finishes is painted over on the stile - this will give you a good finish. While you’re painting the stiles, paint the hinge edge of the door at the same time. is touch-dry after two hours, but I always leave the door open for as long as possible, before closing it to go to bed. I let it dry properly for 18 hours, then give the door a fine-sand, rub-off with a rag, and repeat the process. Use a wedge to prop the door open while it dries and if you need to be elsewhere in the house, put on the internal security chain. For the gloss layer, it takes 24 hours to dry properly, so you will need to sleep with the door very slightly wedged open and the internal chain on. If you don’t want to risk that, leave it for as long as possible, but you may need to do some touching-up the next day. Once everything is dried and set, you can re-fix your door furniture and you’re done. Incidentally, while you’re painting your front door, you tend to meet just about every neighbour in your road - just don’t get roped into painting theirs for them!