Staining pine doors

[PositronicRay]

15 yrs ago I moved house and I inherited 4 x cheapo pine doors, varnished stained finish. I ended up painting them white, ok but not brilliant. In a different part of the house we have some cheapo moulded panel doors painted white, look okay but feel flimsy.

Looks like I'll be inheriting some again. I had a thought of staining them darker, and putting some decent door furniture on, how easy would it be to get them looking respectable or should I just bin them and get some quality items.

Mrs PR fancies something like this, I'm not so sure, seems a popular style, I suspect they'll look dated quickly. A bit like the stripped pine of yore.

http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Geneva-Internal-Cot...

Suggestions welcome, the house is 60s dormer bungalow, contemporary style, renovated about 14 yrs ago and all in good order.

If I buy doors I'd need a chippy to fit, guessing £200 per day, but how many doors could be done each day?

I hate skipping stuff just cause the style is out of favour.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prope... (pic 7)

Edited by PositronicRay on Tuesday 23 May 06:27

[Crumpet]

I'd have thought that the traditional 4/6 panel door would have greater longevity than that horrible, modern style from Wickes - I personally think they look very 2000s already!

Not sure I'd bother trying to stain ones like in your Rightmove link though as I don't think the heavy pine wood grain is very fashionable these days. Personally I'd be whipping out the Farrow and Ball colour chart and painting your newly acquired (free) doors a nice, modern, grey colour and putting on some decent polished chrome hardware. That's what we did anyway!

[PositronicRay]

Crumpet said:

I'd have thought that the traditional 4/6 panel door would have greater longevity than that horrible, modern style from Wickes - I personally think they look very 2000s already!

Not sure I'd bother trying to stain ones like in your Rightmove link though as I don't think the heavy pine wood grain is very fashionable these days. Personally I'd be whipping out the Farrow and Ball colour chart and painting your newly acquired (free) doors a nice, modern, grey colour and putting on some decent polished chrome hardware. That's what we did anyway!

Sounds like a plan, as long as Mrs PR doesn't select pistachio!

[wibble cb]

I found some of our doors on the kerb, someone didn't want them, the idea was to change the handles for modern ones, then my wife looked at them and decided she liked them more than the modern ones we had decided on, so we kept them! As it turned out they were a design that was current when the house was built.

lovely old bronze handles like these:



so I had to convert the whole house to these doors/handles...we went from clangy hollow 80's doors to 50lb solid pine shaker doors,none of which were the same size(as each other, or the frames), it took a lot of adjustment to get them to fit, but they suit the house so much more.




We had hollow core 80's cheapy doors....like these:




so I found more of the same type of door and converted them to closet doors...just need another coat of paint!




Go with a style that suits the house, that way you avoid the 'too trendy' trap.

Edited by wibble cb on Wednesday 24th May 04:43

[PositronicRay]

In the 80's I moved into a victorian terrace. The doors had been "modernised" with a sheets of hardboard nailed over them. It was a "eureka" moment when I realised what was underneath the hardboard, it took me an hour to rip off all the hardboard and expose the original doors. Starting from the front door (painted in a wood effect paint) I stripped and painted them, took me months. Sadly the original knobs were long gone.

I'm thinking painting the existing doors is the best thing in this instance.