How to refurbish French doors!

If its exposed to the weather you want something durable, that will protect the wood. If you do not want the wood grain to come through then just paint it, good outdoor primer and outdoor paint. If you want the wood look (my preference)--- Since varnish over times turns yellow, you may be able to stain it with a white stain, then varnish it after the stain dries. Or you could go to a good hardware store and talk with folks to make sure, which is what I do.

 

Melinda, unless you have removed every last scrap of the old varnish any new stain you apply will probably go slightly patchy.
You appear to still have some of the old coating on the mouldings on the glazing bars.
Its very difficult and time consuming trying to sand it off in those places.

Its very difficult to say just by looking at a picture, but once you think you have it all back to bare wood I would apply something along the lines of Sadolin.
Its a stain and finish, a couple or maybe three coats should last a few years.
Alternatively, as redstar says, if you cant get all the old stain off, it might be best to paint them.

 

After all that hard work i'd consider working some oil into it. I use finishing oil, but there are others available, danish oil springs to mind.

Just used Teak oil on my tool handles, they've come up nice.

Word of warning if you do. When you've finished with the oily cloth, spread it out to dry on a bit of concrete. Screwed up oily rags can spontaneously ignite, don't want it to end up looking like your Avatar now.:OUCH:

 

Thanks as always for the options guys.

Pete I think you're right there is still a bit more on the glazing bars ( thanks- I didnt know what they were called!) Preparation takes sooo much time! A trusted pair of eyes telling me I need to had another go at it is much needed!

Redstar- yep I think Im going to stay with a wood look. The house is faced with sandstone and yellow London brick so keeping it natural will look very well.
I'll head to my local little hardware store and gets some sadolin or a finishing oil as Pete and Zigs suggested.

I'll see what I can get done tomorrow. Painting will be my last resort!

 

There is a type of paint I heard of years ago called milk paint. Its very see through color which does let the wood grain show through. Just a thought. However, I do know that depending on the "type" of wood you have alternates the color of the stain etc. Maybe you can get a scrap of the same wood you have from the lumber yard and play around with it. After all your hard work it, I know you don't was mistakes.

 

Like Esther mentioned with the milk paint, Fiddes do a Liming kit which i've used on Oak to good effect.

 

I used a stain called pickling white on my windows in my garden room, its poplar wood. The stain made the pink part of the wood pop out and hindered the yellow part, came out nice.

 

Redstar, do they make windows in Poplar over there?

Is that what we call Tulip, if so we only ever use it internally.

 

I havent been able to do anything more to the doors.

Ive managed to injure my lower back while training earlier in the week. So Ive been feeling miserable, stiff and joyless over the past couple of days.
Im hoping I'll feel strong enough to do some work this weekend.

 

Thats the trouble with training, trains are harder than backs.

Take it easy till it gets better Melinda.

 

Sorry, yes a bloke dived in with a couple of "helpfull" links in the middle of the night. Don't they ever go to bed in the Ukraine?