I finally let the trim on the front door get so badly peeled and chipped that I had to paint it before winter set in. The sad truth is that something went terribly wrong when we had these doors painted by the Alpen company. We paid about $600 per door for the matching paint job and they were chipping and peeling from the start. When I complained they required that I prep for siding, finish overhangs and the patio before correcting it. The doors were re-painted six months later by another duo of spray painters who were supposed to sand them and then paint again. But their sanding job was minimal and it was not long before the new coat of paint was peeling off too.
Front Door Trim Paint
I knew I wanted to repaint but we were working on other tasks so it was put off for two years. First it was important to get down to bare wood as there was something really wrong with the primer coat that seemed to be creating the peeling. For that task I used a rubber toothed scrubber attachment for the grinder to quickly chip off the paint. Using it on the trim for one door wore out the tips.
Rubber toothed paint stripper
Then I sanded it all with my multitool with the sanding attachment and 60 grit sandpaper. That took off the extra paint reasonable quickly.
Sanded door trim
I had a gallon of brown low VOC Diamond Vogel exterior paint that I bought from a craigslist seller for $5 and when I finally got around to painting this door I had to buy some exterior primer as what was left from the house was interior only. After priming, I painted two coats of exterior brown. The paint was an excellent match.
Exterior brown door trim
This door trim was painted just in time for Thanksgiving guests.