Door Refinishing Cost in Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland

How much does it cost to refinish a front door

A single entry door is $550 to $1,400. The low end is a standard six-foot-eight door, exterior face only, sound wood, simple panels, finish still partly intact. The high end is an eight-foot or oversized door, both faces, heavy molding profiles or carving to strip by hand, and repair work in the bottom rail. Everything in that price is the same specification: stripped to bare wood rather than sanded, repaired, color matched on your own door, and rebuilt with multiple UV-stable marine-grade topcoats, on site, usually in a single day, with a one-year written warranty. You get an itemized number in writing before anyone starts, and it does not move afterwards.

Double door and French door refinishing cost

A double or French pair is $950 to $2,200, priced as one opening rather than as two doors, because color matching across two leaves is the job. Two doors finished on separate days from separate mixes will not match, and a mismatch shows badly on a symmetrical entry. Doubles sit higher than two-thirds of a single-door price because there is roughly twice the surface, twice the edge sealing and an astragal or meeting stile that takes hand work. French doors with divided lights are at the top of the range: every muntin has to be stripped, sanded and cut in by hand around glass, which is slow and cannot be rushed without it showing.

Wood garage door refinishing cost

Wood garage doors run $1,200 to $3,200, driven by size and panel count first and condition second. A single-bay flat-panel door in fair shape sits at the bottom. A pair of carriage-style doors with raised panels, applied moldings, glass in the top section and gray weathered wood across the lower panels sits at the top, because every profile is stripped by hand and the bottom section usually needs repair. If we are doing your entry door on the same visit, the shared setup and the single color-matching pass make the pair cheaper than booking them apart, and it is the only reliable way to get the two to actually match.

What makes door refinishing cost more or less

Six things move the number. Size, because an eight-foot door is more surface and more coats. Whether both faces are done, since the interior face is a separate line. Complexity, because raised panels, applied moldings, carving and divided lights are all hand work. Condition, since a door with rot in the bottom rail, deep checking or delaminating veneer needs repair before any finish goes on. Previous work, because a door that was painted over a stained finish, or coated with something incompatible, takes longer to strip. And exposure, because a fully exposed south or west door earns extra topcoats, which the USDA Forest Service recommends for fully exposed south and west elevations.

Door refinishing cost vs door replacement cost

A comparable entry door installed in this region typically runs $3,500 to $8,000 or more once you count the unit, the labor, the disturbed trim and casing, the repainting and the lead time. Refinishing the door you have is $550 to $1,400. That is the arithmetic that makes this an easy decision for most people, and it leaves out the things that do not appear on either invoice: weeks of waiting on anything not stocked, your entry open during the swap, and the fact that a solid mahogany or old-growth door built for your opening is generally better material than what is sold at that price today. The National Park Service puts it plainly in Preservation Brief 47: over time, maintenance costs substantially less than replacement and involves considerably less disruption.

Sidelight, transom, frame and repair pricing

These are separate lines on the written price rather than assumptions folded into the door. Sidelights, transoms, the frame and brickmould, the interior face, rotted bottom-rail or jamb repair, sill and threshold replacement, weatherstripping and sweeps, and hardware polishing or replacement are all itemized so you can see what each one costs and decide. A full entry, meaning door plus two sidelights plus transom plus frame, behaves in practice like a double-door project and often lands in or above the $950 to $2,200 band. Iron doors, cabinets and interior door sets are quoted by the job, since condition and count drive those far more than size does.

Related Services

• Refinish vs Replace
• Front Door Refinishing
• Garage Door Refinishing

Areas We Serve

• McLean, VA
• Great Falls, VA
• Vienna, VA
• Arlington, VA
• Alexandria, VA
• Falls Church, VA
• Bethesda, MD
• Potomac, MD
• Chevy Chase, MD
• Georgetown, DC
• Silver Spring, MD
• Fairfax, VA
• Ashburn, VA
• Leesburg, VA
• Reston, VA
• Herndon, VA
• Oakton, VA
• Burke, VA
• Springfield, VA
• Capitol Hill, DC
• Kalorama, DC
• Spring Valley, DC
• Cleveland Park, DC
• Rockville, MD
• Annapolis, MD
• Middleburg, VA
• Tysons, VA
• Annandale, VA
• Centreville, VA
• Chantilly, VA
• Sterling, VA
• Manassas, VA
• Woodbridge, VA
• Gainesville, VA
• Haymarket, VA
• Brambleton, VA
• Aldie, VA
• Wesley Heights, DC
• Chevy Chase DC, DC
• Woodley Park, DC
• Massachusetts Avenue Heights, DC
• Kensington, MD
• Cabin John, MD
• Glen Echo, MD
• North Bethesda, MD
• Gaithersburg, MD
• Germantown, MD
• Olney, MD
• Clarksville, MD
• Columbia, MD
• Ellicott City, MD
• Fulton, MD
• Laurel, MD
• Bowie, MD
• College Park, MD
• Frederick, MD
• Hyattsville, MD
• National Harbor, MD
• Upper Marlboro, MD
• Fort Washington, MD
• Waldorf, MD