Interior Door Grief

[Arthur Shapiro]

I've decided it would be a good thing to replace the crummy slab hollow core interior doors in this house with something a little nicer, perhaps solid or engineered maple raised panel doors.

Unfortunately for me, a lot of stuff in this home is non-standard. (For example, the 2 1/2" backset on the interior doors). I seem to have a mix of

28 and 30" doors, which really are 27 3/4 and 29 3/4. Question: is that standard or is it yet another oddity of this home?

The conventional wisdom is that the rough opening should be about 2" wider and

2 1/2" taller than the door. I pulled the casing on one of the smaller doors, hoping for a 29 3/4 opening, and (naturally) found it to be about 29 7/16" wide. I didn't measure the height.

I emaled a couple of internet vendors, and was told, eassentially, that I would need pretty close to 30" width for the 28" door. There was no way they'd fit in my opening.

I'm naively making the assumption that this reality is forcing me into big-bucks custom sizing. But it doesn't hurt to ask any pros in the newsgroup if there's some stock-size solution that might not be apparent to me as Joe Homeowner.

Thanks for any advice.

Art

[Baron]

While not quite the style you stated you want, perhaps you could save money by taking the existing doors and putting on nice veneer skins of your choice of wood followed by some molding to make it look like a floating panel door.

Good Luck.

[Arthur Shapiro]

Thanks - I realized after the fact that I neglected to use the word "prehung" in my original posting; I thought it would be more appropriate to have an equivalent hardwood frame rather than the original painted members.

Looks like I'm talking about ripping down wallboard and moving studs if I want to use stock prehung units. This is not something particularly appealing.

Art

[chaniarts]

would the cost of custom doors be higher than moving or reframing the door to use prehung/premade doors?

[RicodJour]

What's bothering you most about the existing doors? Function or appearance? If it's appearance you could either veneer both sides of the door or do a faux finishing thing on them.

If it's a function thing you'll be hanging doors yourself unless you order custom made doors. Moving studs would be a bitch as I'm sure some of them are in bearing walls.

R

[mkirsch1]

You know, it would be EXTREMELY easy to head down to your local big box store, pull a stock prehung door off the rack, and measure it yourself, rather than guess...

[Vic Smith]

You don't even need a table saw. A 7" circ saw will do.

Jambs are maybe the only place I'd try a chemical paint remover. Scrape a small patch first to see if you'll be able to match the jambs to the door. I said maybe. I'd probably buy new hardwood jambs to match/compliment the door before I'd mess with drywall and reframing.

If he can reframe the door he can cut a stock door to size, so it's more a question of what he can do and what pain he's willing to take. If he's hiring the work but can install a custom cut door himself, the custom cut will be cheaper. I agree with him about matching the jambs to the door. If you're putting in a nice wood door you want the jambs to match.

--Vic

[clare]

Not terribly hard to narrow a prehung unit. How much too big is the standard pre-hung - and what size is it. Any good lumber yard / home center can get numerous sizes of pre-hung doors.

[clare]

The bigger question is what bothers the OP about dealing with a REAL lumber-yard or door dealer in his immediate area - where he can actually MEASURE what is in stock - and where "custom" sizes are often virtually the same price as standard size doors on an "order in" basis. (in stock doors may be a bit less)

[Arthur Shapiro]

The lumber yards in this immediate area aren't that good, and most stuff is special-order.

i went down to Home Depot and looked at slab doors (which I don't want) because that's what was in stock prehung. The framing was rather scanty, and they would (barely) fit in my too-small space. I gather - with no empirical proof other than the response of a couple Internet vendors - that the framing on better hardwood doors is slightly thicker.

Another respondent asked why I wanted new doors. Looks - the cheap slab hollow-core doors aren't very appealing. And the 2 1/2" backset has proven to be a real pain as the original locksets (1968 house) wear out and have to be replaced. I've had to mill wood circles of the appropriate diameter, glue them in, and then cut the same sized hole 1/8" over. What a bloody nuisance.

Anyway, this isn't urgent so perhaps as I have reason to be in the neighborhood of a good lumberyard with decent in-house stock I'll check out the better stuff, armed with a tape measure. Thanks to everyone for the opinions.

Art

[Don Phillipson]

It seems very bad luck that there are no "door and window" specialists where the OP lives. Their business thrives here (e.g. half a dozen fabricators in this city of 1 million) because they serve the market for doors and windows so much better than big box retailers of standardized products in standard sizes.

[Arthur Shapiro]

In article , "Don Phillipson" wrote: e better stuff, armed with a tape measure. Thanks to everyone

Don, the discussion was about lumberyards. There are a number of door/window manufacturers with retail showrooms within a handful of miles. I must confess to not having visited them as they certainly project an upscale image in their advertising. They also seem to emphasize lavish exterior doors.

While I have a reasonable amount of disposable capital for this potential home upgrade, I'm not anxious to spend a humongous fortune on it.

Nevertheless, your point is well taken. I probably should amble by and at least see what they offer.

Art