and want smooth, black painted interior doors

Help others by adding an image of a smooth hollow core wood door -- does not need to be black.

Are you wanting prepainted doors? Doors are typically painted on site. Is there a problem with that?

Thank you PPF and re2architect - here is the "look" that we want. I think this door is masonite; I shouldn't have specified "wood". We are looking for a door that is decent quality, and that we like the look of at an economical price (not sure if that's possible), house is almost 2800sq. ft and will have many better quality finishes, so don't want something that isn't decent I'm just starting to look at the different types of doors. From the stock photos, composite doors are/can be pre-painted, but can have issues if they are hit (not repairable) and have a shorter lifespan. We are two adults and not hard on things. We've asked the builder for clarification on why their vendors is saying black painted doors don't look good and if the process for painting black doors is different than white doors. I've seen many articles and people talking about their black doors and haven't come across people saying their doors don't look good, so I'm trying to understand. We don't have to use this vendor, and we're trying to understand how other people have gotten this look.

" and we're trying to understand how other people have gotten this look. "

Most purchase them primed and have their painter paint them, this way the finish is controllable. more coats can easily be added for better look and coverage.

Paint.

IMO you get unfnished smooth doors then have a good cabinet painter paint them in a spray booth off site let them cure there and then install. Sometimes reds and blacks need more coats to look as deep in color as the sample. Maybe thta is the reason for the upcharge . The fact is black is not always black so it will aslo depend on the color you choose .

I had my interior slab doors painted in a cabinet shop as Patricia says, after having one door painted on site and not liking the result.

In my case it added a number of steps because my doors were not pre-hung either, I used blanks that were prepped and hung onsite, then uninstalled, taken to the cabinet shop for spraying then brought back and rehung. And with the added number of steps, added expense.

Thank you all, we are having custom cabinets, so we could ask our cabinet maker if this is something he would consider doing (his painted cabinet samples were really nice) OR look for someone to do the spray finish. Appreciate this information.

As someone who sprays a decent amount of paint, I would not recommend that interior doors be painted with a commercial coating, which is what your cabinetmaker should be using.

Interior doors take more abuse than cabinets and so your best option is a coating that combines durability with repairability. So, I would recommend one of the waterborne alkyd paints, such as BM Advance. It is a coating that can be sprayed on-site, shop sprayed, or rolled on (let your painter decide which they prefer and if you are concerned request a sample). This allows touch ups at home or you can recoat the doors without sanding when the time is right.

Using a commercial cabinet coating is just going to add a lot of cost, for only slightly more durability, while largely removing repairability.

$300 per door upcharge for black would be low. There is a ton more prep and sanding with black. Black shows every single imperfection. Matte finishes like you are showing grab all the hand oils and never look clean. You need to be chill and real about that, or you need a different color choice. The painter will not endure mile after mile of blue tape markings. If that is you, do something else.

A black stained door could certainly be interesting in the right interiors.

We ordered pre-hung, solid core, prefinished Masonite doors for our downstairs remodel. We are DIYers and thought through the cost of renting a paint sprayer and doing the finishing ourselves and it came out nearly even to just buy prefinished - wasn't worth the extra work for us. We ordered ours without the jamb finished to match but you can order it matching for an extra charge. Of four doors (ordered through Lowes), two had to be returned and reordered because of finish problems. The return and reorder process was bumpy between Lowe's and Masonite because we ordered the doors on sale and had to repurchase at the non-sale price and Lowe's issued a refund (the refund exceeded the difference in price to compensate for our extra hassle). My DW had to do some work on installation as the door isn't quite square with the frame. The one door that is hung so far looks great, though. Ours are one of the white finishes vs black, so I cannot comment on the depth of color or black finish, but the white finish looks great. They came with the basic hardware which is also quite sturdy and nice. All in all a positive experience with some hassles but a nice finished product.

Thank you all for the information; it's helping to make our decision. The builder provided more information, as DeWayne mentioned, the reason noted was because imperfections show more with black. Although we wanted black doors, we're probably going to stick with white (which we also like)