Cutting doors down for my stupid small door frames.....

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

Soldato
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Really doing my head in this but i'm in the market for a new set of doors for the upstairs in my house.

Ive been scanning through Howdens as i can get stuff pretty cheap via them but the majority of their doors only come in 2ft 3in or 2ft 6in. My doors are pretty much 2ft 4in and there are only a couple of styles available in that size. Fair enough. I've found one I like, and then look at the height of the doors. The smallest available is 6ft 6in and upon measuring all of my current doors that are in situ they all vary from between 6ft 3in to 6ft 4in.

Ive been told you can only take a max of 5mm off the doors so i'm a bit stuck what to do in terms of the height. The only other option I can see is to get some completely solid wood doors but they cost an absolute stinking fortune.

Taking the casings out and making them bigger isnt an option as thats a pretty big job really and we've only been in the house a couple years and so have decorated and I don't want to have to have places replastered again.

How do people get on in this situation as there must be millions of homes around the country like this with old size door casings/frames?

It's doing my head in as I really want to get some new doors upstairs as the current ones look naff but can't for the life of me find anything to suit. I'm guessing the door size i'd need would be 6ft 4in x 2ft 4in which would leave enough for planing down to fit exactly. My mate at Howdens mentioned they could be relipped but not sure what that entails, how easy it is and then how good it looks once done.

Anyone any advice on the situation?
 
I thought the restriction for cutting down was for hollow doors, a solid wood door should be fine.
 
Proper solid doors are hard to come by and expensive.
Solid core veneered are more popular but you'll expose the core.

One other issue is Chopping 3 inch off a door may make it look odd. So you'll have to chop 1.5 off the top/bottom and make sure any other doors in the same area look the same'ish

I'm paying £95 for oak veneered. And the same in solid Oak is over £200
 
I really don't want to fork out the hundreds it would be for solid oak doors but the doors that are on are old and nasty and could do with replacing.

I have put out a job on MyBuilder to see if anyone can quote for relipping them which that chap at Howdens said is an option.

They would need probably an inch of the top and an inch off the bottom taking off which I didnt think would be too bad. But alas im not a joiner/carpenter so have no idea. Hopefully MyBuilder will turn up some results as I can't see another way of doing it really.

I'm a bit miffed too as the Howdens near me had a VERY good offer on 5 of the Dordorgne smooth doors which would have been a bargain but they only do them in 2ft3in and 2ft6in widths!
 
I replaced all my upstairs doors recently, I had to take at least the same if not more off all of them and so I went with a solid door and made sure that I took off even amounts all around.

http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Ches...-Door-Knotty-Pine-4-Panel-1981x762mm/p/205913

This is what I went with, as I was doing it myself I went for cheap doors so as to not worry to much if I made a mistake. No previous experience of cutting and fitting doors and they all fit and overall it wasn't to much hassle. However as they are soft wood some of them are a little warped so at some point I need to remove them and weight them for a couple of days to make them fit perfectly.
 
Solid pine is probably your best bet. You can pay a bit more and get better quality pine doors than the Wickes ones, they wont have as many knots in, so will be better for painting up.
 
I had to take more off of my oak veneer doors which exposed the core on the carpet side. Annoying that I had to do it but once hung you'd never know.
 
Ok it's a bit out there considering you're wanting to change your doors for new.

Have you thought about visiting a salvage yard. You might find some quirky one off solid wood doors in the size you want at a price you can tolerate. A bit of care and you could have something that suits.

A recent visit to my local salvage yard and they had hundreds of doors in none standard sizes.
 
mattyg said:
You can buy Iron on Oak Veneers especially for that reason Have a look on the bay.
Click to expand...

Never knew that I might check it out but tbh you couldn't tell if you didn't see it off the frame so it's not something that bothers me really
 
Mark A said:
Solid pine is probably your best bet. You can pay a bit more and get better quality pine doors than the Wickes ones, they wont have as many knots in, so will be better for painting up.
Click to expand...

Wickes do knot free as well, like you suggest slightly more expensive but no messing around with knot treatment before painting.
 
Yeah I just noticed after I posted. They seem to be priced pretty decently assuming they are good quality.
 
I fitted some hollow core doors and one needed to be cut down way more than was advised. I carefully peeled away the outer skins (partially) on the sides to reveal the inner framework. I resized the framework to suit, glued the skins back in place, and trimmed the skins flush with the frame using a router. Hope that makes sense.

It was a bit of a faff but the only way I could get matching doors throughout the house
 
I have now replaced 3/5 of my nasty old doors with pine ones. Two left to go and it's been pretty hard going. None of the door frames are totally straight in my house.

They do look good though and it will be well worth all the hassle once done. I have a week off now, so hoping to finish the job off.
 
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