See how we transformed this glass pantry door found at the thrift store with elbow grease and paint!
About three years ago, my mom and I found this beautiful glass door at a local antique store and although we were years away from the kitchen renovation, I knew it would be the perfect pantry door. Thankfully, Brett was on board and we brought this baby home for only $60!
Fast forward to today and we finally have it installed! Giving this door a refresh wasn’t a terribly hard process but it did require some time, a little scrubbing and a lot of patience.
The Supplies
- Palm sander
- 80 grit sand paper
- Paint thinner
- Chip brush
- Paint brush (1.5″, angled)
- Paint roller, smooth finish
- Paint scraper / putty knife
- Paint: Dutch Boy, Flint Stone
- Windex
- Paper towels
How to Repaint a Glass Pantry Door
Shortly after purchasing said door, I tried sanding down one of the sides. Well, it wasn’t as easy as I thought and decided to pause the project until we actually knew what we were going to do with said door. You can see how far I got below 🙂
When we started the kitchen renovation, the original plan was to have a barn-style door for the pantry so only one side needed to be refinished. Of course, after I finished off that one side, we realized it made more sense to do a regular style door that opened and closed, so I was back to work removing all the old paint.
First, I used a palm sander and 80-grit sandpaper to get the paint around the outside and edges removed. The wood separators between the glass was the hard part – the sander was too big and using my hand was too tedious.
So, I tried the paint thinner for the first time and the rest of the paint came off fairly well. I worked in sections and let the paint thinner sit for about ten minutes each time and then went over it with a putty knife, wiping off the excess on paper towels. It took about two passes through to get a majority of it off.
Worth noting: it wasn’t perfectly ‘clean’ or down to the wood. There was still some leftover paint around the glass which is why I then sanded everything down one more time by hand. I used the 80-grit sandpaper, just to rough it all up.
Once that was done, I wiped everything down with windex, let it dry and then it was finally time for paint!
Because paint came off the glass easily (I tested first!) I didn’t worry about having to tape anything.
I put two coats of blue on both sides – we chose Dutch Boy in Flint Stone – in a door and trim, high gloss paint. Aka, no top coat necessary.
Actually installing said door was a little more of a pain in the ass than we anticipated. Brett started with buying a cheap door and frame, and was just going to swap in our door but that didn’t end up working out. So, he had to build a custom frame and then hang the door from that. There were touch-and-go moments but he finally got that baby installed!
We decided on black hardware to go with the cabinets and because the door handle had some extra contraption inside, we ended up doing a push-and-pull style opening with the latch in the top right corner.
Still up in the air is whether or not to apply frost paper to the glass so it’s not entirely visible inside. I like the clean look but, as you can see above, the pantry isn’t the most organized so having something to cover that up would be nice. Stay tuned 🙂
So, what’s left with the kitchen?
Install the baseboards on the wall with the pantry door, pick out some artwork for that wall and for a few other spaces, and that about does it!
Nearly one year later and we’re almost wrapped up with this renovation 🙂
All our best,
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