The Great House Renovation plods on...
Now we're getting doors:
The real reason for sharing this is the interesting idea I used to make shagged old door frames look nice.
I also add a disclaimer here that the doors are being made by a local carpenter and fitted by his chaps. To DIY this I would need a proper workshop, nailgun, router and several months. So not ashamed to say this went on the outsourcing list... And their result is way better than I could have achieved.
However, I did the design, came up with the ideas and did all the prep work on related jobs to make this work and for that bit I'm quite chuffed that it's all working out...
The first 3 or so pictures show the oak cladding on the old frames.
I'd determined that taking the old frames out would be a nasty job and they were solid, plumb and straight anyway. So I asked a timber merchant how thin they could prepare 140mm wide oak. The answer was "about 6mm" - so that's what I got.
Needed to do this on 3 doorways. The other two doorways were moved in the wall a long time ago and I'd already made solid oak frames with 50mm softwood backing (to make up to the hole in the wall size).
I stripped the paint off the old fames and demounted the stops last weekend, testing my smoke alarm in the process... Several times...
The method used to fix the cladding was a bead of PU glue traced all over the back of the sheet, then fixed every foot or so, both edges, with an electric nail gun using 30-40mm pins.
That seems to have worked extremely well.
Next problem was the walls had been skimmed so were proud of the old frames. The chaps suggested they rebate the architrave to overlap the plaster - being simpler (for them) than either of us trying to trim the plaster. That's the last picture.
That also worked really well.
It was nice to see that all the edges of skirting I'd installed actually ended up cut in the right place (with one tiny exception). The tiled skirting in the hall I'd left a 5mm gap on purpose - that will get filled with a bit of Mapei Cement Grey silicone which looks near enough like the rest of the grout from a few feet away.
The actual doors were a simple framed/ledged/braced construction in yellow pine - chosen as it was a fair bet cheaper than oak and it'll probably be more stable against warping.
I am extremely impressed - they weigh a ton and block out a lot of sound (allowing for the door stops are not mounted yet) and look a lot nicer than all the same style I've seen in Wickes and the like.
Price - about the same as a ready made solid oak and twice the price of a cheapy softwood "sheds" version. Given I needed some weird sizes due to a) the openings being reduced in size by 12mm, b) 3 of the doors will be sliders so need to overap the flat section of architrave - it was well worth going the custom route.
The work should be finished on Monday with the sliding doors mounted too.
On the sliders, I chose chamfered architrave with a wide flat section for the doors to overlap. These will not be boxed in, except for a pelmet over the running gear. So we've gone for mounting a brush strip in the face of the door frame both sides to brush up against the architrave. This combined with an overlap of about 30mm each side when closed, should hopefully give a decent light and sound seal.
The BCO already confirmed that for our house he did not require any intumescent seals on any doors (like the kitchen) - but this might be a consideration of you had more than 2 storeys???
I'll finish the oak with Treatex Clear Matt Hardwax Oil which I love - used it on the skirtings I installed 4 years back. One coat brings out the honey colour of the wood but it still looks uncoated - this stuff only looks like a varnish once you get to about 3 coats.
The doors we'll leave to age for a bit - but we may choose to darken them with some coloured Treatex oil - which, pine being pine, we'll test on some scrap first as who knows what the colours will do...