Grey internal doors
Grey internal doors arrive factory-painted rather than primed, so the colour is the finish and there is nothing to paint on site. The surface is more even than a brush can manage, but it cannot be touched up with a tin from a shop, and any edge you trim has to be repainted.
- In this range
- 8 doors
- Guide price from
- £81.60 inc VAT
Grey has been the default alternative to white on British internal doors for about a decade, and it is the one colour people most often get subtly wrong. Not because grey is difficult, but because the word describes a range of colours with almost nothing in common beyond the absence of a strong hue.
There is also a decision underneath the colour that matters more than the shade does: whether you buy the door already painted, or buy it primed and paint it yourself. That choice sets what the finish looks like, what it costs you in weekends, and what happens the first time somebody puts a suitcase through it.
8 doors
Prices are guide prices including VAT, taken from the smallest size and plainest finish of each door. They are not an offer to sell — confirm the price for your size and finish before ordering.
Grey Painted Shaker Door
The shaker shape in a painted mid grey rather than white. The quietest way to have coloured doors without committing the whole house to a colour.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from7 sizes£81.60inc VATGrey Painted Ladder Door
Horizontal ladder panels in a painted mid grey, supplied finished. For a house where the joinery is grey and the white version would be the odd one out.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from7 sizes£88.80inc VATGrey Painted Flush Door
A completely plain grey leaf. No panel, no moulding, no line on it, in the colour people choose when white feels stark.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from11 sizes£94.80inc VATGrey Painted 4-Panel Door
The four-panel shape in a factory grey. A period outline without the period colour, which is the combination most Victorian terraces are being refitted with.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from11 sizes£112.80inc VATGrey Painted 6-Panel Door
Six moulded panels in a factory grey. The most traditional outline in the least traditional colour, for a period house being brought forward rather than back.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from7 sizes£122.40inc VATGrey Painted Glazed Door
Getting daylight through a run of grey doors without breaking the scheme with a white one. Three lights, grey frame.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from4 sizes£158.40inc VATGrey Painted 4-Light Door
Four tall lights running most of the height of a grey leaf. More glass than the three-light, and a taller, narrower proportion than the ten.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from4 sizes£169.20inc VATGrey Painted 10-Light Door
Ten panes in a grey grid, which is the industrial-window look done as an internal door. Painted timber, not bare metal.
- Painted grey MDF
- 35mm
Guide price from4 sizes£189.60inc VAT
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Factory-painted, or primed and painted grey?
A factory-painted door is sprayed flat under controlled conditions and cured before it is wrapped. A primed door is an undercoat and an invitation. The difference in the finished surface is real and visible, and so is the difference in what you can do about it later.
| Factory-painted grey | Primed, painted on site | |
|---|---|---|
| Finish | Sprayed and cured — no brush marks, very even | As good as your technique and your conditions |
| Colour choice | Whatever the range offers | Anything you can buy in a tin |
| Work on site | None. Hang it and fit the handles | Sand, undercoat, two topcoats, per leaf |
| Matching other joinery | You match the trim to the door | You match the door to the trim |
| Touching up damage | Hard — see below | Straightforward, you own the tin |
| After trimming | The cut edge is bare and needs painting | Paint it with everything else |
Grey is not one colour
Every grey has an undertone, and the undertone decides whether the door looks right in the room. A blue-grey next to a warm oak floor reads cold and slightly grubby. A warm greige next to cool white walls reads beige rather than grey, and people describe it as dirty without being able to say why.
The three families worth telling apart are the cool blue-greys, the warm greiges that carry a little brown, and the near-neutrals that sit between them. Anthracite and charcoal are a separate decision again — they behave like a dark colour rather than a neutral, and they make a small room read smaller.
- Judge the colour against your floor and your walls, never against white paper.
- Look at it in the actual room, in daylight and under the lights you use at night.
- North-facing rooms pull a grey colder; south-facing light warms it.
- If the trim is staying white, hold the grey against that white specifically — a brilliant white and a soft white sit very differently against the same door.
Trimming and repairing a painted door
This is the part that catches people out, and it is the honest cost of buying a door that arrives finished. The paint is on the outside. Cut into it and you expose the substrate underneath, which on a painted MDF door is a pale, absorbent edge that looks nothing like the face.
So trimming has to be followed by sealing and painting the cut edge, and a brush will not match a sprayed finish exactly — close enough for an edge nobody sees is the realistic target. How much you are allowed to take off at all is set by the manufacturer rather than by us, and it varies by model, particularly on a door with a lock block. Check what came with the door before the saw comes out.
The same applies to damage. A chip in a factory-painted face cannot be repaired invisibly in place, because you are matching a sprayed finish with a brushed one. On a door that gets knocked — a kitchen, a utility, anywhere a pushchair lives — that is a genuine argument for buying primed and painting it yourself, so that you own the tin and can go over the whole face when it needs it.