Prepping and painting exterior door

Folks

My exterior door used to be all white and along with a handyman, I'm completing this project. The door gets hit with direct sun about 5-6 hours a day and there is no storm door. I'm wondering if I just need a good quality exterior paint or should I use that + a marine varnish like epiphane or mccloskey

I see many guides online but they talk about staining + varnish and none show paint + varnish

Thanks

 

Just quality paint. Given that it gets direct sun, I would not use anything remotely dark.

 

No need to apply spar poly/varnish over the paint! As noted above a good quality exterior paint is all you need [after proper prep] preferably a paint with a sheen.

 

As bad a shape as that doors paint is is I sure hope your taking the time to strip it back it back to bare wood, prime then repaint.
All door manufactures have warns on there web sites and new doors about not painting a dark color.
Far easier to remove the whole door and use a chemical stripper to get that old paint off.
There's lots of save strippers to use, citrus, soy, Peel Away.

 

What brands would you recommend? I know one - benjamin moore - grand entrance paint. Any else?

 

While I've used BM paints in the past and know there mid line or better coatings are good, I've not used their coatings often enough or recent enough to know a lot about their lines of paint. Basically any paint store's [not paint dept] top line paints will do a good job. Discussing the job at hand with the folks at the paint store will allow them to recommend which coatings would be best.

Good prep is key! While it would be best to strip the door down to bare and then prime and paint as long as the existing paint is sound and well adhered you can paint over it after a light sanding ..... but it might take more than a light sanding to get it to look nice.

 

From the looks of the wood that has already been stripped, I would suggest you use an oil primer.