How to restore wood doors – refinish and revive interior doors like a professional

  Over time, wooden types of doors can be tarnished by ingrained dirt and grime from dusty building work, sticky fingers and pets’ paws, and become marked from bumps and knocks, but they can be brought back to life with good, regular maintenance. Thankfully, refinishing wood doors is an achievable DIY, where simply cleaning and fixing up yours will successfully revive them, without a big spend and often without the need to strip the wood either as we've done so here. Follow our expert step-by-step guide to restore old wooden doors to greatness.

How do you clean old wooden doors?

For our DIY we're using steel wool to cleanse the surface along with a wax and polish remover. You can also sand the door using both a palm sander for the flats and a hand sanding block for any grooves and detailing. This will help remove any staining and smooth out any pits as a result of damp decay and damage over time.