I don't have the budget to replace all the interior doors (hollow, flat slab, builders grade wood doors) so would like to try some diy techniques to make them look nice until I can afford to replace them. The problem is, I had tenants living in here whose dog ruined so many things and they tried to cover it up by slapping paint over things to hide the damages. So because they didn't sand or prime before slapping up some paint to hide the scratch marks in the finish of the door, the paint now peels off if you even look at it too hard. What options do I have? Am I going to have to remove the doors and strip them??! I can't justify that for some crappy old builder grade 80s doors but it's already cost me 10s of thousands to fix other damages and there are far more important things I still need to spend $$ on besides having nicer doors. Hence the cheap diy idea but with a base that peels here and there..... Any hope or simple fix?

 

Welcome to the forums!

A pic or two would give us a better idea of how bad it is and what needs to be done - http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html

What type of finish is under the tenant applied paint? Are the doors luan, masonite, birch, something else?

 

What kind of money did you recoup from the tenants who did this?

I'm looking more at the idea of how you run your business to maybe create some more cash flow for you to use.

 

There is no option to add pictures (on mobile, which is where my pictures are. To dust off the old laptop and transfer pics from phone into computer as per instructions in link, it might be a few days) But as mentioned in the original post, they are hollow wood doors. Some of them, the paint is peeling badly, others just chips. But it's not adhering well, that's for sure.

As for recovering losses, you can't get blood from a stone. To have won in court would have still resulted in nothing but court costs, lost wages and time, and at best a lien against their.... Oh wait. They are deadbeats. They don't OWN anything to put a lien against to recoup anything! Not a concern anymore at this point but thanks anyway.

 

Oops. Neglected to mention wood in original post!

 

Here in Wisconsin, judgments are good for 20 years. Sometimes it's many years later but you'd be surprised how often a deadbeat has to come in and pay us, plus interest, because they want to finance the purchase of something now and have to satisfy us to get the loan. If they have a job, you can garnish wages as well.

 

He worked in a family business so could easily get around the wage garnish, and his vehicles were in company name, as well I know his family must have had some of the bills in their name because I'd still get mail in multiple family member names here. It's past the time limit now anyway, unfortunately. This is not a new problem.

I've got the house to a liveable state now and BIG items are next on the list (new windows, furnace) which is why prettying up the doors is ok for now. The doors are old and need to buy prehung because to try to put new doors in these old, settled, probably shifted frames again sounds like a lot of aggravation for a mediocre result, yet still takes money out of the budget that's earmarked for bigger, more important things.

 

My wife has a judgement against the owner of a business in neighboring Virginia for unpaid wages. The judgement is good for 20 yrs and can be renewed.

I understand the doors are wood but were they previously painted or stain/varnish? Trying to understand what made the tenant applied paint peel as it may alter the fix.

 

Just stained/varnished. Never painted. The claw marks would've scratched the finish so they were just doing a quick cover up, hoping it would be less noticeable, which it was.... the first attempt. One door had multiple attempts to cover scratched varnish, then scratched the paint, then repainted that so it's a huge mess.

 

I'd sand the doors with 80 grit, that should remove most of the latex paint that isn't adhered well. What aggressive sanding doesn't remove should stay stuck to the varnish. Then it's a matter of finish sanding until you get an acceptable looking finish. While a solvent base primer would be best, with all the sanding involved a latex primer should do ok. You can then apply your choice of enamel [latex,waterborne or oil]

The peeled edges along with the scratch marks can be filled with joint compound - just keep it's use to a minimum.

 

I'll give it a go on the door that's already a mess. Not much to lose with that one. Thanks for your advice!

 

If you ever get to the point where you have more cash flow from this, we've decided repairing doors is not worth our time, we simply replace them.