We just want some cool doors…

You know, We never really thought about doors until we started building.  My “contemporary” 80s bachelor pad had the old hollow Masonite doors.  You know the ones.  $50 contractor specials.  The  McMansion had about about 35 six panel doors installed.  They worked I guess, though I hated having to dust them.  Once the new house was framed, and under roof, it became clear that we needed to start looking for doors in short order.

Since our contractor uses Builders First Choice for most of his materials we decided to go to BFS first.  We must have really threw him a curve ball!  He came back with a decent price on a full-lite door for the patio, but the front door, which was “ok” was over $2,300!  He was embarrassed to even tell me how much the pre-hung doors were.  He just said he’d keep looking.  I never heard from him again.  Doors are easy, when you are building a traditional “spec” house in Knoxville.  For modern, not so much.

Exterior Doors

I had read that Crestview makes some cool mid-century doors http://www.crestviewdoors.com/ unfortunately they never called me back.  After I read a few blogs it became very clear that these would be out of our price range.  A big obstacle was our budget, which was about $500 a piece.  Our contractor suggested fiberglass doors as they were cheap and wouldn’t warp or rot.  Unfortunately, we just could NOT find a fiberglass door for our mid-century inspired house.  Steel doors were ULTRA modern, and while I like that, it just wouldn’t fit this plan.

After weeks of looking through some TRULY hideous offerings we finally came across ETO doors.  http://www.etodoors.com/  Their front page certainly does not do them any favors, but lurking deep in their database lies some really cool doors at reasonable prices!

Here’s what we ended up with for the front door:

The architect had mentioned “square sticking” before when discussing doors and I had no idea what he was talking about.  It is only when I really started looking at exterior doors did I realize what they are, and how important they are to a “flush” door.  I found a bunch of cool doors with windows in them but something really bothered me about them and I just couldn’t put my finger on it.  It was only when I found the ETO doors that I realized what it was.  The framing around the windows of the other doors was protruding around the glass, like a frame.  In the Eto doors the frame of the glass was flush with the wood of the door creating a very clean, modern look.  The devil is in the details indeed.  The door cost, by the way, was $759 plus $215 for pre-hanging.  So definitely over the $500 budget, but that was NEVER realistic.  Not with mid-century modern!

For the patio door, we could have pulled the trigger on the full-lite and got it pre-hung for under $700 but the patio door exit was sort of a dark galley so we wanted the light that was coming through the door to be dramatic.  We ended up with this beauty:

Both doors are “engineered” mahogany so the shouldn’t warp or split.  The glass is laminated, offering privacy and strength.

Interior Doors

Do you like six panel doors?  You do?  Well, you’re in luck.  If you Google “modern interior doors” you’ll get Lowe’s and Home Depot links with 1,544 pages of them!  For those of us looking for the simple flush door, man, what a difficult search!  We did come across a pretty cool company selling “modern interior doors” that we would really consider modern.  http://www.modernhomeluxury.com/

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Like, literally, I want to run my fingertips gently over those ridges.  I want to caress that beautiful, dark wood.  Mmmmmmmm….Anyway, I digress….After weeks of looking at other door manufacturers online I thought I would check back to see what other doors they carried and came across this one:

Ok, so while I’m not IN LOVE with this door, it was BY FAR the best looking door I have seen for under $170 per door.  I started a dialogue with the company and found out the frame and the trim were included as well.  All pre-finished….perfect.  I got the quote, which while expensive, was well within reason and we wouldn’t have to finish them so all seemed good until I noticed the hinges were not included.  I had “assumed” the doors were “pre-hung” because the quote included the door, the frame, and the trim.  HOWEVER, the doors were NOT pre-hung at the factory.  A deal breaker?  Well, I consulted my contractor, who does not beat around the bush about anything, and he said that hanging doors in the field was a “lost art”.  He had seen experienced trim contractors take slab doors and throw them across the room in frustration.  Buying doors not pre-hung would add SIGNIFICANT cost that would affect the trim budget DRAMATICALLY, so back to the drawing board.

Our Architect mentioned T.M. Cobb so I took a look there.  http://tmcobb.com/ While their doors looked very well made they didn’t have a single picture of just a plain flush door.  They had shaker types, and a ton of different panels, but nothing that looked remotely close to what I would consider modern.

Speaking of flush doors, why is it so hard to find a plain door???  You would think all these six panel doors would take longer to make, more routing etc, which would make them cost more.  Maybe every door manufacture in the Western Hemisphere is tooled up to create these because all of these contractors that are building entire subdivisions of “spec” homes think people want these “ornate” doors separating every room so they make thousands and thousands and thousands of them dropping the price until they become the “coveted” contractor special and deals are everywhere.

Masonite

Ok, so at the beginning of this blog Masonite doors were mentioned in my old 1980s bachelor pad.  They still sell them, and they are cheap as dirt.  I would like to sit here and tell you that I did not consider them, but I DID.  An act of desperation maybe?  We just needed some flush mount doors for our cool mid-century inspired home!  Masonite doors are mid-century right?  Well, they will be in 2020!  Aside from the reviews of these doors, which were unbelievably negative “piece of sh*t” was one review that sticks in my memory, the big downside for me was the hollow door.  We had just written a check for $2,775 to put soundproofing between the first floor and basement (5.5″ open cell foam) and batt sound proofing between the master bath, bedrooms, and laundry.  So now we would be putting in these hollow doors that would transfer sound as if the damn thing was parabolic microphone.   Just. can’t. do. it.

You know those days that you search so long and hard that you actually fear you are going to come to the end of the internet?  Well, I was having one of those days when a website popped up that just had a name that resonated with me “Baird Bros” http://www.bairdbrothers.com/  This place isn’t a door company, it is a SAWMILL.  They make these doors IN AMERICA!  That alone gave me this giddy, warm feeling.  Would they have a flush door?  Well, it just so happens they do, and it is SOLID WOOD.  No tubular crap, no MDF.  REAL SOLID WOOD.  Check out this tiny, little picture:

Yes, it’s birch, which my Architect says can have an odd grain that sometimes doesn’t take stain well, but we are going to take our chances here.  They come PRE-HUNG (though you can get slab, which we did need five of for pocket doors) and come with the lockset bored out, mortise, and the hinges installed!  The price you ask?  $137 a door!  Now, five are slab as mentioned but one of the doors had to be an exterior (entry from garage) 20 minute fire-rated door so that actually hiked the price up.  The sigh of relief after I placed the order could have blew out a 200 candle birthday cake….

We’ll try to remember to update this blog as the doors come in and get hung.  The front door will be painted an Eichler Turquoise.  Not sure about the patio door yet.  The interior doors will be stained a dark chestnut brown.