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Interior doors

Sheffield Tony

Sheffield Tony

Nordic Pine
Joined
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Location
Bedfordshire
- or how to avoid making them !

I know as a woodworker I could make a couple of glazed interior doors. I've made a couple of doors for our house already, but I suspect my timescales might not suit DW. I'm sure someone commented on an earlier thread about reasonable interior doors being readily available - where from ? I have used a couple from a builder's merchant that has since become a Jewsons, which were OK. Two from Wickes which were cheap and nasty (the ones I currently want to replace). Standard size 30" wide.

Any suggestions that are accessible to the humble home owner, i.e, not trade only ?
 
What period is your house? Are they the sort of doors that get removed from similar houses doing loft conversions etc? Any going free/cheap on Marketplace, Gumtree, eBay locally? Failing all of that, do you still have Architectural Salvage places in your area?
 
I have fitted a fair few internal doors from different suppliers and to be honest they are much of a muchness, I do often use Howdens these days simply because of the convenience.

I did fit some Deanta brand doors a while ago, think the customer got them from their local Howarth Timber, they did seem better quality than most others.

One thing I liked about the Deanta doors I fitted was you could plane up to16mm off each edge so could reduce the width or height of the door by 32mm if needed which is handy to know for future reference.

deantawood.co.uk

Internal Doors in Oak, Walnut, White, and Black | Deanta

Internal Doors, FSC-certified solid core available in oak and black and more. Offering high quality doors. Backed by superior quality.
deantawood.co.uk deantawood.co.uk
 
AndyT said:
What period is your house? Are they the sort of doors that get removed from similar houses doing loft conversions etc? Any going free/cheap on Marketplace, Gumtree, eBay locally? Failing all of that, do you still have Architectural Salvage places in your area?
Click to expand...
Our house is late 1930's. I know some people are lucky enough to find a house with charming period features, we were not so lucky. The one original fireplace (minus a section of the chimney) was a ghastly brown tiled affair very reminiscent of my granny's house and is now gone. The upstairs doors are flat hardboard which had bakelite doorknobs so maybe original; downstairs all are not original - the front door I made to at least reflect some of the original style.

I was hoping to just buy something off the shelf, rather than looking for a project, but it is a thought.
 
Doug71 said:
I have fitted a fair few internal doors from different suppliers and to be honest they are much of a muchness, I do often use Howdens these days simply because of the convenience.

I did fit some Deanta brand doors a while ago, think the customer got them from their local Howarth Timber, they did seem better quality than most others.

One thing I liked about the Deanta doors I fitted was you could plane up to16mm off each edge so could reduce the width or height of the door by 32mm if needed which is handy to know for future reference.
Click to expand...
Now that could be helpful, thanks, I'll have a look.

One of these doors it to the kitchen, which is an extension and had a sliding door when we moved in. The door was a standard door, and as a consequence the opening is actually 29", not 30" as the door slid over the opening. The plan was to remove the frame, and make the hole a little bigger - there's a couple of small RSJ's supporting the wall above that curiously stick about 2" through the outside wall of the house, but at least I know I can cut away a bit of wall without anything moving. Alternatively, these doors may stand being trimmed enough to avoid cutting brickwork. The frame still needs to come out, one side is straight as a banana.
 
Your upstairs doors may have been "modernised" in the 60s/70s. I remember helping my dad nail hardboard sheets over the 1930s panelled doors in our family home. The tell-tale clues are visible edges of hardboard on the edges of the doors and magnet-detectable hardboard pins every few inches.
It was such a popular thing to do that the DIY shops sold door sized sheets.
 
Unfortunately there is not a nice panelled door hiding behind the hardboard. The thickness is standard, and where I've repaired damage there is no sign of anything within. They are quite old, but could be non original. Quite why they would "modernise" the doors but keep the bakelite hardware I don't know. But there are many dubious upgrades - like removing the handrail and spindles from the stairs and replacing the handrail with a flat 4 x 3/4" mahogany board, far too low, and open below. That had to be sorted before DS arrived !
 
Another thumbs up for Deanta Doors from me. I used them to replace all our interior doors a few years back. Quality seemed good for the money, and not ruinously expensive. Panels were nicely book-matched, and as has already been pointed out elsewhere, the solid timber in the edges all around was substantial giving plenty of scope to trim them to size. https://www.thewoodhaven2.co.uk/threads/internal-doors-which-supplier-deanta-doors.3413/
 
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AndyT said:
Your upstairs doors may have been "modernised" in the 60s/70s. I remember helping my dad nail hardboard sheets over the 1930s panelled doors in our family home. The tell-tale clues are visible edges of hardboard on the edges of the doors and magnet-detectable hardboard pins every few inches.
It was such a popular thing to do that the DIY shops sold door sized sheets.
Click to expand...
And people are still ripping out the original doors from 60s/70s properties now even though they are old enough to be called "period features". Hope you find some decent doors Tony
 
So a quick thanks for all comments, and particularly the recommendation for Deanta doors. I ordered a couple, they do look better quality than the previous ones. Square, clean, everything that should be in line is, and they are even nearly flat. They are also correspondingly a bit heavier. I hung the first one yesterday. My power planer broke a while ago, so hand plane instead. I am also quite a few years older than when I last did door hanging.; I think it looks good, but I am moving slowly today. I can see why the advice is that older people should do some weight training. But not today !
 
I have used Deanta doors as they were good quality and not really expensive when you think of making them. They also have a good amount of material to allow for trimming, not all do.
 
Doug71 said:
I have fitted a fair few internal doors from different suppliers and to be honest they are much of a muchness, I do often use Howdens these days simply because of the convenience.

I did fit some Deanta brand doors a while ago, think the customer got them from their local Howarth Timber, they did seem better quality than most others.

One thing I liked about the Deanta doors I fitted was you could plane up to16mm off each edge so could reduce the width or height of the door by 32mm if needed which is handy to know for future reference.

deantawood.co.uk

Internal Doors in Oak, Walnut, White, and Black | Deanta

Internal Doors, FSC-certified solid core available in oak and black and more. Offering high quality doors. Backed by superior quality.
deantawood.co.uk deantawood.co.uk
Click to expand...
Worth pointing out that Howden's only deal with the Trade as far as I know.
 
Bit late coming to this thread...

My first call would have been towards reclamation centres if any exist in/around your area as put forward by @AndyT ... probably more costly than what you've now got through! Sounds like they are suitable and of good quality.

I had to replace all the internal doors and got all from my (then) local DIY store, when 6 panel pine doors where available. One of them I had to rip down the centre and fit additional 'stiles' to, so making 2 half doors, because of the size of the opening having an archway. I couldn't use a full size standard door. I wanted to take out the arch but SWMBO wasn't up to me doing that because of the mess and dust... We'll have been here 40 years 6th December '26 - I still want to remove the archway 😎
 
None of the doors in this house fit properly. 2 don't shut at all, one doesn't close without putting your shoulder to it. None of them are original to the house (200 years, or so).
The shoulder-bruising one is a cheap and nasty hollow flush door. I expect to find egg-carton inside. But it is to the boiler room (well, ex-boiler room as we have just taken out our non-functioning oil heating system - something else about this house that didn't work as it was supposed to. Sorry about the preposition).
The problem about buying replacement doors here is they come ready-drilled for handles. They assume that you are going to fit a tall and narrow handle, with a lock underneath. And that the latch has a very short backset.
I don't want that.
I want one hole for a sensible handle, with a rose, which means a backset of 2½" or 3", not 50mm. Preferably no hole at all. I've yet to find such a door.
And French hinges are rubbish, too.

So, when I was last in the UK, I bought some proper butt hinges and a longer latch. If only I could find where I've put them.
I've fitted the nice handle (French) but the rose, which is not at all excessively large, fouls the door frame a snatch.

So My Cunning Plan is to remove the door, take off 4mm or so from the hinge side (enough to remove the existing hinge recesses), which will also give me better clearance, fit the new latch (once it rears its ugly head) and rehang with the new hinges. It won't bind (unless I screw up) and should be a lot happier to use.

I once worked in a Manor House, Strelley Hall. One of the rooms dates back to the 1300s, IIRC, and the entrance porch is Victorian. Everything else is somewhere in between.
The doors to the rooms were huge, but they did not meet fire regs. The solution was to cover them with a fire-retardent board, after which they looked ghastly. So the MD had them done up with moulding to give the impression of the original panels. It was a poor imitation of the original, but probably the best of the rather poor options available. I'm going to go for the same approach on this door. Today I have milled up enough moulding to turn the flush door into a four-panel door (the other side of the door is never seen, so I won't bother). I hope it will work well. It's difficult to see how I could make it worse.
S
 
Placement of handles and hinges caused me a few moments of thought, as here in the UK the drilling is left to the user. These are 4 panel doors (well, 2 panel + 2 glazed), and the pictures from Deanta show handles placed at the level of the centre rail, which sort of looks meant but (a) is not where the old hardware and hence holes in the frame were, (b) doesn't match any other door in the house and (c) would give me a sore back from stooping to reach it. It could also be argued that it is the worst place to be drilling material away, right into the joint. A wider Google showed images of doors with handles in almost every reasonable position, so I went for the easy life and put them where the old ones were.

The old hinges were surrounded by a haze of rusty deposits, so I replaced them. Of course the screw holes are not in the same place, they aren't even in a completely different place, just a subtly different place to make it really awkward. Rather than repeating the trick someone had already used involving matchsticks, I drilled out the old holes (matchsticks and all) and cut some cross-grain plugs to glue in. Hasn't fallen off yet.
 
Second door done this weekend. This was the harder one. The original door casing had been bricked around, a bit too snugly so the sides were pushed inwards in the middle. This has been irritating me for years - 25 to be precise. Solution was to rip out the door casing, fit a new one, planing (by hand) the verticals slightly concave to match the bulge in the brickwork, then exploiting the respectable trimming allowance of the Deanta door to fit the slightly narrower opening. Looks much better.
 
Sheffield Tony said:
Second door done this weekend. This was the harder one. The original door casing had been bricked around, a bit too snugly so the sides were pushed inwards in the middle. This has been irritating me for years - 25 to be precise. Solution was to rip out the door casing, fit a new one, planing (by hand) the verticals slightly concave to match the bulge in the brickwork, then exploiting the respectable trimming allowance of the Deanta door to fit the slightly narrower opening. Looks much better.
Click to expand...
In your situation I always plane the existing frame as long as it is in good condition.
If it gets excessive I will move the archs over to suit.
Cheers
Andy
 
Sheffield Tony said:
It could also be argued that it is the worst place to be drilling material away, right into the joint.
Click to expand...
that ia why, traditionally, a proper lockrail joint was made with two narrow tenons, above and below, but leaving the stile solid in between so that the lock could be fitted without compromising the joint.
s
 
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