Looking for a new door for your home? Our door selection tips

In everyday life our doors are resisting various types of loads: people of culture and well-balanced ones, for instance, treat the door with due care i.e. merely open and close it not making their family members and colleagues nervous; offended, injured, disappointed persons often slam the door making everyone around including your pet jump out of skin or even wake up in horror.

Interior door, apart from the necessity to duly comply with room design should possess consumer value and have acceptable price.

What door are we looking for? Answer this question before starting your procurement procedure. Factors to be accounted - door leaf parameters, casing dimensions and glazing.

Most frequently used materials

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Most frequently you can find interior door made either of single-piece or glued woodblocks or HDF/MDF and PVC.

Single-piece woodblock

Belwooddoors range of products does not include single-piece wood doors.

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Saw timber

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Chip board & HDF

No such models in Belwooddoors range.

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MDF

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PVC

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Door leaf finishing

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Most popular finishings:

• Without finishing. Natural wood doors. May be painted or varnished in future.
• Paint-and-lacquer coating. Door surface is finished by multiple layers of colorless/colored varnish or enamel. These coatings display excellent resistance to increased humidity and temperature variations. Varnish-finished doors look attractive in "eco" and "country" interiors.
• PVC film. PVC film coat looks nice and shows resistance to direct sunlight increased humidity and temperature. Exposed to injury by sharp items. However, best option for low-budget design.
• Natural wood veneer — finishing by light-gage sheet of fine wood. Most frequently found species - oak, wenge, ash, milanese nutwood etc. Texture and shade of each veneer coated door is unique as a finger print. For better protection from humidity and mechanical damage veneer door should be provided with varnish finishing. Repairability is and advantage here: small scratches and rubbing marks may be eliminated by means of polishing and varnished afterwards. Veneer coated doors are more expensive than models coated by artificial materials.
• "Fine-line" veneer — natural finishing material. It is made of sliced natural wood veneer. Veneer is previously painted, glued and compacted. Such technology enables the manufacturer to obtain a realistic imitation of any wood species - without snubs and surface imperfections. Fine-line coated doors are varnished afterwards. This coating is resistant to discoloration and delamination. Its is also capable to withstand moisture and temperature variations.
• HPL-plastic, or paper-layered laminate, is made of several craft-paper layers impregnated by synthetic thermoreactive resins. This mixture being impacted by considerable pressure and temperature yields uniform hard material. It is capable to withstand moisture, chemical agents, scratches and mechanical blows. Not toxic. Being resistant to breaking under deformation this material is often used for bent members manufacturing.
• Laminatine (i.e. CPL — Сontinuous Pressure Laminate) is a more cheap version of HPL. It is represented in the form of plastic sheet in which layers are compacted together with the use of continuous pressure technology. Compaction pressure is lower than for HPL, therefore, performance characteristics are lower than HPL's.
  Nevertheless, CPL, like HPL, consists of several specially decorated and resin impregnated craft paper layers and additional protective film layer.
• Enamel — painting compound comprising polymer additives, resins and colorants. Minimum three layers of this compound should be applied on the door surface. Each layer should be individually dried to avoid blistering, cracks and pores generation. This results finally in heavy duty film resistant to aggressive environmental impacts. It is continuously sustaining original shade, withstanding discoloration and turning yellow.
• Patinating— the process of artificial surface ageing by means of special paint which is being ground after it has been applied.
  At that, the door surface begins display a well-defined wood texture creating a pattern comprising wood fibers and annual rings. At that, depressions appearing in the surface are more dark and intensive in color in comparison with other scalloped surface.
  Patinating is giving an impression of long-lasting door usage.

Belwooddoors presents doors finished by wood veneer, fine-line veneer, paint-and-varnish coating, CPL, enamel and patinated ones.

Glazing types

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Interior door leaf may be either blind or glaze inserts. Glazing may be represented by a wide range of configurations — from small strips to big inserts covering up to 2/3 of the door leaf. Main drawback of the glazed doors — less reliable acoustic insulation if compared with blind doors.

Glaze inserts may be transparent and opaque, plain and patterned, straight and bent in form.

Doors with large-area glazing are more suitable for sitting rooms, dining rooms and kitchens. Glazing is designed to provide better daylight penetration and thus make the room and space seem more commodious and aerial.

Small opaque inserts are ideally fitting restroom and bathroom doors. Cabinet room will best of all accommodate a blind door with small non-transparent glass inserts.

Door opening type

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Door opening type — one more important issue to be accounted in advance. 90% of door units are swing type - single and double-leaf. 10% are represented by folding doors, sliding doors, and (rather rare and, by the way, not user-friendly) bidirectional doors.

Folding and sliding doors are best fitting small rooms to save space.

Lever handle with key plate

Parts kitting

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Fittings are classified as compulsory and auxiliary. Compulsory items are hinges and handles. Some door leaves are supplied in one set with hardware. Some of them require handles and hinges to be procured additionally.

Types of interior door hinges are presented below:

• Butterfly hinge
• Screw-in hinge
• Multipurpose hinge

Bar hinge

Types of interior door handles are presented below:

Non-rabbeted handle (knob handle, bracket)

Rabbeted handles:

• Knob latch
• Lever handle with escutcheon

Handle may be installed either with or without additional hardware. Below are most frequently encountered options.

• Door without additional closing
• Door closed by cylindrical lock insert
• Doors with sanitary turn knob
• Doors locked by cabinet key

Additional fittings — various latches, buttons and other hardware. These are selected with reference to door closing design

If you decided to install the handle independently use a complete kit comprising handle + button and/or locking locking mechanism

Extensions

Extension — a strip of board (from 5 cm wide to 300 cm long). It is typically installed in the following cases:

• thickness of the door casing is less than wall thickness;
• to margin the door opening.

The point is that standard width of the door casing is rarely overrunning 80 cm while the walls are very often much thicker. Extension is very helpful in such situation: it allows to shield the open edge of the wall and thus to facilitate the door opening care.

Extensions are most frequently made of MDF, chipboard or low-cost wood species. Extension strip color is normally selected with reference to door parts color, namely, casing, trims, door leaf. However, there are design solutions where extension color is in contrast with them.

What door design would you prefer?

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Obviously, doors should be in line with design-project. It doesn't really matter whether you are proposed a ready-to-use and nicely furnished paper compiled by a high-status and trendy designer or this is your personal cherish dream. Most important for the door should conform with:

• style you have chosen,
• walls finish,
• floors finish,
• decorating components and furniture.

Mind “to conform” doesn’t mean to have identical color. Imagine, your room has light walls and dark floor. It means that you door should be 1-2 tones darker or lighter than the floor color.

On the other hand, your door may stand in contrast with walls and floors finishing: light-colored door may become an ace in the pocket for the dark-shaded interior balancing the psychological pressure that may be exerted by a monotonous color matrix. Specifically, if furniture is also designed in light shades.

You are not obliged to combine light interior and white doors (however, it's not the same with everybody, if you adhere to the saying “tastes differ” it may become and excellent option for you). Door finished in bright shade may act as a splash of color on a dark surface intended to thin up homogeneous atmosphere and place greater focus on particular style details.

At the same time you should bear in mind that style of the room and style of the door should be in line. Let’s say, paneled doors decorated by composite baguetе will suit classical interior. Minimalistic solid door leaf will adequately suit modern interior designs like loft, minimalism, high tech etc.

Of course, door finish should be selected with reference to common style. Natural veneer and other coatings representing wood texture look nice with both classic and modern styles while modern ones, plain leaves with enamel or polymeric coatings, better combine with modern styles.

Detached house — special aspects relating to door selection.

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Selecting the door for your detached house first try to consider particular nuances. Namely - is it the house for permanent dwelling or country home visited from time to time.

Strength characteristics: door burglary resistance, and ability to withstand attacks of your pets are first to be accounted.

Also important are heat and acoustic insulation features. Expensive doors with high acoustic insulation properties will hardly turn timber house into success - sounds coming from anywhere will inevitably penetrate through walls and flooring.

Taking into account the fact that timber houses are prone to settling probably it is expedient to install cheaper doors which could be further, within 2-3 years, replaced by permanent ones.

Flat doors selection considerations

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Basic principles for doors selection: moisture resistant doors — for kitchen and bathroom, eco friendly - for the nursery.

Better sound insulation would be preferable for the nursery as well.

In all other respects - style and design are guiding.

Price assumptions

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There are several parameters essential for the interior doors. Notice, that price is not a main criterion whilst doors selection.

Hight quality swing type door will cost considerably less than sophisticated folding or sliding door, at that, service life of simple swing type door will be longer than that of folding/sliding one. However, it could be vice versa.

Besides, you can hardly define which door is better referring only to the material used.

There is a self-deception that doors made of oak or any other high-price material are more sound than doors made of pine or any similar coniferous wood material.

Once you have investigated the features of particular wood species and found out that pine wood being relatively cheap becomes a more suitable option if compared with oak or beechwood door, you will obviously reconsider your requirements put forward to the door material.

Pine wood, for instance, is resistant to cracking or drying up. Furthermore, it is easy for process work and allows to install hinges or locks without any problems.

Pine wood is extremely responsive to all sorts of wood stains and paints while oak or birchbark are not.

If you manage to perfectly select proper wood stain and paint for your pine wood door you will successfully compete with any exotic wood door in respect of price and ease of use.

Artificial materials like chip board, MDF, composites, glass and metal are capable to replace wood for the purpose of interior door manufacturing.

These artificial materials are quite good in design, ease of maintenance and service life and can successfully compete with natural wood doors.

Price of most sophisticated artificial models rather rarely exceeds the price of natural wood doors.

Strict requirements put forward to door manufacturers prevent low-quality and hazardous products from entering the market.

Selecting interior door color

Interior doors coating: what to choose?