Door refinishing · Arlington, VA
Door Refinishing in Arlington, VA
Arlington has 30,238 detached single-family houses among its 121,970 housing units, and 45 percent of everything here was built before 1970. The part that matters for door work is the pre-war belt: Lyon Village, platted in 1923 across 762 lots; Lyon Park, with its 1920s Craftsman bungalows and 1930s to 40s Colonial Revivals; and Maywood, platted between 1909 and 1913, with 198 contributing buildings.
North of there, ZIP 22207 covering Bellevue Forest and Woodmont is the third most expensive in Virginia at $1.5 million, and Country Club Hills was developed across 126 acres in 1928 and 1929 in English Tudor, Colonial and Victorian. Those houses still have their original doors. Call (202) 979-9977.
Front Door Refinishing in Arlington, VA: 1920s Doors on 1920s Houses
Lyon Village went on the National Register in 2002 and Lyon Park in 2003, and between them they hold Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Craftsman, Spanish Mission and American Foursquare houses. Ashton Heights adds Queen Anne and Gothic Revival, and Arlington County thought enough of it to publish a dedicated Ashton Heights Style Guide. Doors from that era repay the trouble: old-growth fir and quartersawn oak, mortise-and-tenon joinery, three-light Craftsman glazing, heavy mortise locksets. Hardly any of them still look original, because six or seven coats of paint have buried the panel profiles. Stripping that off is the single biggest visual change you can make to a 1920s Arlington porch.
Historic District Rules in Arlington: Repair Beats Replacement
Maywood is a local historic district with its own design guidelines, and Arlington's Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board issues Certificates of Appropriateness for exterior alterations inside a local district, with an exception for routine maintenance, repairs and replacements using the same materials. Refinishing an existing door is maintenance in the plainest sense: nothing about the door, its profile, its hardware or its opening changes. Replacement is what draws the full review. That is the whole practical argument for refinishing on a Maywood or Lyon Village house, and it happens to be the cheaper argument too. Confirm your specific project with Arlington's Historic Preservation Program first, since the guidelines are neighborhood-specific and Maywood's are being updated.
Why Arlington Front Doors Fail
Arlington's nearest long-record weather station is Washington National, and it is measurably milder than Dulles: 67 days a year at or below freezing rather than 108, and about 53 freeze-thaw days a year derived from daily records for 1991 to 2020, against roughly 90 out at Dulles. Milder is not mild. National still logs 41.82 inches of rain across 114 separate wet days a year, and it is the number of separate wetting events, not the total inches, that works a finish loose. The National Park Service, writing about temperate four-season climates like this one, recommends inspecting exterior doors every six months and notes that south and west exposures weather faster than north and east.
Arlington Neighborhoods We Cover
North Arlington is our densest patch of work: Country Club Hills, roughly 500 houses from the 1928 to 1929 development of 126 acres; Bellevue Forest, built out from the late 1930s; Woodmont; Arlingwood; Crystal Spring Knolls; Broyhill Forest; and Minor Hill. Further south we work the 1920s districts, Lyon Village, Lyon Park, Ashton Heights and Maywood, plus the brick Colonials and townhouses around Clarendon, Courthouse and Virginia Square. Wood, fiberglass or iron, single or double, house or townhouse, it is the same on-site process. The only real Arlington variable is where we can legally park the van for the day.
On-Site Door Refinishing in Arlington With No Door Removal
Arlington streets are tight and plenty of these houses sit twenty feet off the sidewalk, so we work small and clean: containment at the entry, drop cloths over the porch, glass and hardware masked, van parked once. The door never comes off its hinges, which matters more here than almost anywhere else in the region. A 1920s door hung on a 1920s frame with an original mortise lock rarely goes back on cleanly once it has been removed, and you are not left with an open front doorway on a busy block. Most single doors are one day. Single doors $550 to $1,400, doubles $950 to $2,200, wood garage doors $1,200 to $3,200, one-year written warranty, 15+ years at it.
Neighborhoods We Serve in Arlington
- Lyon Village
- Lyon Park
- Maywood
- Ashton Heights
- Country Club Hills
- Bellevue Forest
- Woodmont
- Arlingwood
- Crystal Spring Knolls
- Broyhill Forest
- Minor Hill
Door Refinishing Services in Arlington
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- On-site — your door never leaves the house
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Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a Certificate of Appropriateness to refinish my door in Maywood?
Ask the county, but the exception you are looking for is routine maintenance, repair and replacement in the same materials, which Arlington carves out of the Certificate of Appropriateness requirement for local historic districts. Refinishing changes nothing about the door's material, profile or opening. Replacing it is what triggers a full review by the Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board. Contact Arlington's Historic Preservation Program with your address before you book anything, and we will supply the written scope for the file.
Can you save an original 1920s door that has been painted six or seven times?
Usually, and it is one of our favorite jobs. The National Park Service notes that thick paint fails at the weakest point of adhesion, the oldest layers next to the wood, which is exactly why yours is cracking and lifting in sheets rather than wearing thin evenly. Getting it all off a Craftsman door with molded panel stops is slow work, but underneath is normally sound old-growth fir with crisp profiles that no modern door reproduces. Then you decide: repaint, or take it to a stained finish.
How much does door refinishing cost in Arlington?
Single entry doors are $550 to $1,400, double or French pairs $950 to $2,200, and wood garage doors $1,200 to $3,200. Arlington jobs land right across that range because the housing does. A 2000s townhouse door off Clarendon is a straightforward single. A Lyon Village Craftsman with seven coats of paint, three lights and a storm door to work around takes considerably longer. You get a fixed number before we start, never an hourly rate that grows.
I'm in a condo or townhouse. Can you still work on my door?
Yes, though the front door of an attached home is often governed by the association rather than by you alone. Most Arlington associations treat refinishing in the existing color as maintenance, and treat replacement or a color change as an architectural request. Check your documents or ask your board. We will provide a written scope and the finish specification for the submission. Individual units get the same treatment as houses: on site, door stays hung, most finished in one day.
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