Doors, doors, doors!!! I am completely lost...
I looks like we will have to do something with our entrance doors: tenants, ours and 2 entrance doors to the building. All of them are worn: some dings, loose and abused areas around door handles and locks. Apartment doors are the same edwardian four panels painted 30X96 style doors. Building doors are double with…
I looks like we will have to do something with our entrance doors: tenants, ours and 2 entrance doors to the building. All of them are worn: some dings, loose and abused areas around door handles and locks.
Apartment doors are the same edwardian four panels painted 30X96 style doors.
Building doors are double with glass and single with glass all painted.
Can we restore our doors and how it is compared cost-wise to the option to get a replacement.
I have 3 issues with replacement doors:
1. I did not see our style available and we (obviously) want to keep the same style.
2. New doors are from new wood. I know how many pieces of the moulding you have to look through in Home Depot to find the single straight one. What will happen to our new doors in a couple of years and what if we find ourselves in situation when we will regret that we get rid of our old worn but perfectly straight and level doors?
3. Price of new doors. This might not be an issue if we discover that restoration is actually more expensive ( we have no idea now).
Please give us some advice. What would be the better and most cost effective way in this project?
It is more than a few hundred dollars to remove entry doors, strip them, make repairs, and refinish them, but still less costly than new doors. Usually when we quote doors, we cover ourselves for any unseen repairs – particularly with Brownstone door which have been painted; they were often painted to cover up repairs such as changes in handing, repairing old mortises, repairing enlarged screw holes, and other damage including plain and simple rot. When we quote this type of work, we plan to cut out rot, cut out old repairs which may be less than perfect, and properly fill old mortises with real wood and gap filling marine epoxy. Of course, work like this is finished with proper oil primers and finishes.
To be done right, all of this takes time and some of the materials can get costly when compared to items found in big box stores. Often replacing glass is involved.
I have taken some pictures of a door which we removed to our shop and stripped and proceeded to cut and replace damaged wood on. I have not yet posted these pictures on my web site, but none-the-less, I have them to show someone what goes into a proper door restoration; please feel free to ask or visit our website to see some of our completed work:
http://www.thetinkerswagon.com
Steve Cymbalski
Stetson Farr Ltd. dba, The Tinker’s Wagon
I’ll try to redirect you back to repairing/restoring what you have.
BTW, f you are multi-family, be advised that you cannot replace apartment entry doors with wood, it has to be fire-rated metal. You could shoot for installing a different wood door, and claiming that it is the old, grandfathered one, but any inspector would know in an instant that a new door is new.
I do agree with mopar above regarding the lower quality in new products.
Primarily I recommend restoration because the finish carpentry skills involved in hanging a replacement door in an existing opening are far beyond the capabilities of present day contractors. Fellows who have grown up in the age of pre-hung doors never learned the skills once taught in the trades.
We now live in the age of pre-hung. Mortising hinge sets into jambs and doors is painstaking chisel/router work. We could hang five pre-hung units in the time it takes to plumb and trim and mortise one used or new replacement door.
So your choices on replacement doors is butchery or great expense. Rebuilding what you have preserves the labor intensive edge (the jamb) and cleans up the worn edge.
I will now climb off my soap box.
My carpenter did something similar to what brucef describes and I’m very happy with the results. Original garden level single door and parlor double doors. The garden level had multiple locks installed over the years and was really beat up. The parlor doors were less beat up (had less use) but had lost some doodads which were replicated.
For the interior entrance doors, consider MDF. It’s very stable and more sound-proof than solid wood — bearing in mind that (apart from massive parlor doors) many old interior doors are pretty skimpy. I bought almost-custom doors from Dykes Lumber on 6th St in Gowanus. They have a catalog with many, many molding options so it’s easy to find historical patterns. Took about 3 weeks. Cost about $350 each but depends on the pattern.
It sounds as if your doors are in relatively good condition. Dings can be filled with wood filler and painted or stained. Loose areas can be filled in with wood and glue, and locks and knobs can be tightened. This should not be expensive at all, probably just a few hundred dollars, vs. thousands to replace.
The quality of a new off-the-shelf door is not as high, and they are not available in the same styles. Salvage doors are not going to be any better than the ones you already have. If you have doors custom made, they run into the thousands.
geoffabbas, unfortunately your doors are 34″, I need 30″. I could be perfect if it would be my size. I could use it to replace 2 apartment doors ( providing your doors are in better condition then mine) because the style is very close.
We could not find new doors our style and we would prefer to keep the same style since we have 3 other doors of this style on the same landing… which bring me an idea to investigate other doors closer.
May be we will be able to switch doors around because other doors are not used normally. It could save as some work related to locks and handles if this part is less damaged in other doors.
But we still need to fix all cracks and dings.
We want to keep doors painted but want to get rid of layers of caked paint.
The only pair of doors that we want to restore wood finish is our entrance doors. I think that dark almost black walnut finish will hide repairs and imperfections.
Whom could you recommend for this type of work?
We have successfully rebuilt doors in the past.
Most of the damage will be on the lock, as opposed to jamb edge.
Sometimes, with the patient on the operating table, it is possible to rip the damaged portion off, and strongly laminate a new piece of wood to replace the now missing slice.
This won’t work with a clear finish, but if painted you can putty the repair (especially if you took the time and trouble to rip your repaired piece exactly the right width)to be indistuishable.
This repair preserves the probably non-standard hinge mortises, which would be a pain to recreate with a new or diferent door.
Home Depot has a price guarantee on lumber so they buy the cheapest possible wood. New doors will undoubtedly look new, but you can still get a nice, well made door that will stay true. Look up Lemieux doors online and see if you can find a matching style. They use laminated veneer cores which are very unlikely to warp. Think $500-$1500 per new door depending on shape. Restoration depends on what level of quality you expect but labor costs add up to $500 a door very quickly.
I wouldn’t replace original Brownstone doors. We had ours stripped, repaired by a carpenter and repainted. They don’t look new, but they are gorgeous. The wear and tear of woodwork in an old building is part of the charm, and as you said, you can’t compare the quality of the old doors with new ones.
It was part of a major renovation, so I don’t know how much we paid per door. A good carpenter is expensive, but I wouldn’t trust that kind of work to an amateur.