Wood exterior doors?

[Julie Bove]

Are these common any more? Looking online, it would seem not. Not that I want one but... I am getting new roofing soon and will have to have no soffit put in and that will require painting. Since I want the house to be more of a yellow, rather than the bleh color it now is (too dark to be white, too light to be beige), I thought I might get a new door as well. Lowe's seems to sell mostly Fiberglass and steel. I currently have steel but it's old and crappy looking. I got a really nice white storm door last year and was thinking that it might look good with a white door as well. Or even a red one. Not sure the exact color I want the house but something in a pale yellow tone. Perhaps with a hint of gold or peach. Depends on what roofing I get. The roofer gave me a sample of Prairie Wood which is a lighter brown with copper flecks. I love it but it would appear that it isn't algae-proof and I for sure want that. I did check their website and unless they did not update it, it's not. :( Because I love the colors.

Anyway... I was talking with someone about doors and she insisted that of course they still sell wood doors. I only saw interior ones or the kind that are mostly glass with wood surrounding. I did find real wood doors for sale at various places but they appeared to be custom and were in the thousands of dollars.

I suspect that what this person thinks are wood are really fiberglass made to look like wood.

[Mayayana]

You can paint your steel door. There are also plenty of wood options. In addition to the prehung, expensive, decorative options, nearly all lumber yards can get standard wood doors. They just don't keep them in stock. When I need something like that I look at a catalog from Brosco. All lumber yards near me can get all Brosco items in 2-3 days. They're the standard for moldings, doors, windows, etc. If there isn't Brosco near you there's probably another company. any carpenter should be able to tell you and should have a catalog.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Solid wooden door will cost. My daughter's reno'd house built in the

1920's has all original doors redone, all solid exotic wood weighing a ton each. I heard they are very valuable. My house has all steel with wood core exterior doors with Al thresholds plus mostly glass storm door. Also it matters which way the entrance faces, South is hard on doors(hot sun and UV exposure)

[Julie Bove]

I know I can paint it. I just want a new one. The idiots that owned this house did all sorts of wrong things, including starting to drill a hole (perhaps for a peep hole) in this door. They must have been very short to have drilled it there. We also need a new knob and deadbolt. They are old and we have trouble opening them.

I also don't want a wood door. I just don't think they're as widely available as they once were. This person laughed when I said Lowes doesn't carry them. She didn't believe me.

[Julie Bove]

I think ours faces west but I am bad with directions.

[DerbyDad03]

I don't see any reasons in your post for not using a fiberglass door. They are made to look like wooden doors and usually come primed and ready for paint.

You can get some really nice fiberglass doors with window inserts. Look here for example:

[Julie Bove]

Thanks! I would not want a window. But I would get either Fiberglass or steel. I was just wondering about the wood ones. I did not think they were common any more but the person I was talking to seemed to think that they were.

[micky]

Not necessarily. They may have wanted one everybody could use. Next owners, house sitters, visitors.

I'm only 5'8 and I needed a peephole and drilled it for people shorter than I, for that very reason. But I look at it now and realize I still didn't make it low enough. If the next owner is 5'0, she'll have a lot of trouble using it.

WD-40. Or maybe graphite.

I don't believe it either.

BTW, my threshold has a groove in it from one side to the other, not very noticeable because it opens towards the inside of the house. And the door bottom has metal trim on it that goes inside the groove, from one side to the other. No outside air entering the house there. The other 3 sides are just springy copper like I'm used to for all my life, but the threshhold is really something.

Whereever the sun sets is west or southwest if you live in North America.

[Vic Smith]

What's "common?" I bought a wooden door Saturday. Replacing the garage entry, which is falling apart.

[DerbyDad03]

Why did you choose wood?

[Vic Smith]

Because I didn't have to "special order" it. It was sitting there at the store. I can just cut a couple inches off the bottom and mortise in the hinges. It has the knob and latch holes already cut. It's primed and only needs a finish coat. It's well constructed. It cost 10 bucks. The previous wood door lasted 55 years with no care from me.

[dadiOH]

You must not have looked very far...

[Mayayana]

| I know I can paint it. I just want a new one. The idiots that owned this | house did all sorts of wrong things, including starting to drill a hole | (perhaps for a peep hole) in this door.

I guess that's the biggest problem with steel doors. They seal well, and they look OK when painted, but they can't be worked. If you had a wood door already then you wouldn't need a new one. You could just patch the holes.

| I also don't want a wood door. I just don't think they're as widely | available as they once were. This person laughed when I said Lowes doesn't | carry them. She didn't believe me. |

You don't want a wood door but were just curious whether you could get them? :) Lowes and HD can order wood doors, just like normal lumber yards. They have catalogs. (I was looking into bifolds recently and found they had catalogs for some very expensive options.) They just can't fit all that stuff on the floor. They also don't generally market to high-end or architects. The high-end fashion tends to be things like solid mahogany doors or high quality painted wood doors. The working class fashion tends to be things like fiberglas doors with fake "exotic wood" grain and over-the

-top junky etched glass panels. The average DIY, landlord, or low-end contractor who wants to replace a front door is likely to want one of those gaudy numbers with the etched-and-beveled glass sidelights and fake wood grain, so that's what's in stock.

(I always find that kind of intriguing: The poor always want to buy gaudy, gold-encrusted tokens of royalty, while the rich try to show off by buying subtlety and official "authenticity" from "exclusive" dealers. Working class people buy crappy particle board dressers with garish gold pulls, yuppies buy the same thing but with "rosewood" veneer that's actually plastic laminate, and no pulls. While the *real* sophisticates -- the Deconstructionist architects -- want polyurethaned MDF because it's "honest". They want to show off that they've conceptually transcended fashion. :)

[Moe DeLoughan]

Julie doesn't go looking for stuff, she goes looking for attention. Hence her posts.

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

she doesn't use google: that's the absolute truth, she doesn't use google.

she also seems to have problems with coming up with search terms

[Julie Bove]

Yeah. I did that to the one on the back house but this one is dented and crappy looking. Would just like to replace it.

I stand corrected! Although I don't see a category for wood doors, when I went back again to look, I did see two cheap wood doors listed. Hmmm... Oops!

Yeah. Not sure where it sets. I guess I just don't pay attention.

[micky]

I don't think 100 dollars is really high-end for wood sliding closet doors, but HD couldn't even sell those. They marked the price down to

20 dollars a set, and I bought one. Two years and I haven't opened the box since before I bought it. :-) But it's on my list of things to do.

[micky]

I have a lot of real crap at my house. I guess t hat means I'm upper class, huh?

[Julie Bove]

I do stand corrected on this. When I looked again, Lowes does have a couple of cheap wood doors listed but there is no category for wood exterior doors.

All of our dressers are wood although mine has a veneer. My dad bought it for me when I was a baby. He bought it used from a hotel that was selling their old stuff. It was purported to be 30 years old when he got it. I'll be 55 next month. The veneer is chipping off in some places though. I have two other wood ones that were purchased used on Cape Cod. Some guy just outside of the military base sells old furniture that he has refinished. Daughter is the only one who got new furniture. Buttercream colored sleigh bed and small chest of drawers. Of course she picked the most expensive things in the shop. My parents bought these for her and they let her do it. She was 4. Now of course she wants something else. I knew this would happen. I did the same thing. But my White French Provincial stuff had been kept in such good shape that I managed to sell several pieces for the price that was paid years prior for the whole set. So win win there.

We're not rich and we're not poor. I do love fancy stuff but I don't usually buy it. I do like quality though and this house is not quality. Used to be that Zillow.com listed a number for quality of construction with

10 being the best. This house was a 4. I did look up various things at Lowes and Home Depot. When this house was built and remodeled, they put in the lowest priced things throughout. And it shows. :(

So... We are slowly redoing what we can when we can afford to do it.

[micky]

I think to search for search terms, use google.google.com