Question on framing a door

[MiamiCuse]

I am gutting my house and need to frame a few new doors and remove a few doors.

In close examination, the way the existing doors are framed is very different from what I have seen typically done. Here is a picture of the door frames of two adjacent doors.

right side is the rough frame of the door, looks typical. On the left side I removed the piece of wood that is vertical. Normally those are just

1x6 nailed onto the 2x4 stud right? I pryed out one piece and was surprised it is a piece of 2x6 routed on both sides to form a "T" section. So the wider part is on the outside and the drywall stops short of it. Here is a picture of it's cross section.

house is 35 years old, I wonder why it was done this way, and whether there is any advantage of doing it this way. If I have to frame new doors should I use this method to be consistent?

Thanks,

MC

[Mike Marlow]

That is certainly unique. I sure would not go to any lengths to duplicate it though. It's pretty clever, but it serves no greater purpose than a standard construction technique would.

[Lou]

Any possibilty that this door used to be a pocket door?

[MiamiCuse]

No. I just tore out about 7 doors and they were all framed like that. Nothing was touched in about 35 years since it was built.

I can certainly reuse these wood for the three new door frames if I pull out the nails, is there any advantage by doing so?

My carpenter thinks it's easier to just use new 2x4s.

Someone else mentioned I should reuse these wood as they are probably at a better grade than what I can buy today and will definitely not warp anymore.

Thoughts?

MC

[MiamiCuse]

The only reason I can think of, is when they frame in the door openings, they weren't sure where they will have doors, and where they will not (just a pass through). This will allow them to decide later on where the doors are to be hung? I said this because of the layout of the house, many hallway doors, as you walk in the main entrance you can go to the north, west and east wings they are all isolated, so there are many door openings, some are pass throughs, and some are real doors.

Another reason may be more wood to attach mouldings and trim in addition to the door frame itself.

Still scratching my head.

[Hoosierpopi]

. Here is a picture of the

close together in a corner. Could it be that this approach was used because "standard framing would require moving the doorways further away from the corner? Or, am I reading the picture incorrectly?

[MiamiCuse]

Yes those two doors are very close, but that has nothing to do with the way it is framed. I have already disassembled six doors and they were all framed this way.

MC