I think I need to get out more. Maybe I should stop faking agoraphobia and hit a few building-supply stores despite the dreary weather. As part of this recent kick I've been on about doors, I've discovered an exciting new world of the bespoke kind. I've always liked a gracious-looking door but I'd gotten into the habit of relying on the tried and true, smugly assuming that a door is a door is a door. Wrong. Mea culpa.
I have discovered custom-carved interior doors and I'm smitten. A carved door is a different animal from the regular custom door, which is usually solid wood and is customized through the shapes of the pieces that constitute the door and how they're put together. You may be familiar with Canadian companies that manufacture beautiful examples of this type, among them Amberwood Doors Inc. ( http://www.amberwooddoors.com) and Imperial Design ( http://www.imperialdesign.on.ca).
An American company, Simpson Custom Doors ( http://www.simpsondoor.com), is also one of this group and, although it doesn't have Canadian distributors, it offers a handy custom door checklist on it website for anyone needing a guide to the various features to consider.
If you're looking for customized wood doors for your home, the Simpson Door checklist will help you narrow down details such as the species of wood, the architectural style the doors should have to work in your home, the type of glass you'd prefer if you're using a glass insert, as well as the doors' sizes and thicknesses.
Browsing the websites and downloading product brochures from manufacturers' sites will expose you to what different wood species look like and how well various designs fit into different interior styles. If you plan to go the extra mile of customizing, it'll be well worth doing this level of research.
The reason I'm so smitten with the other type of custom interior door -- the carved version -- is because of how unique and personalized you can make it. I'm all for anything that encourages the expression of individual flair.
I'm talking about the JELD-WEN custom-carved MDF interior door. MDF stands for medium density fibreboard, and the manufacturer is JELD-WEN Windows and Doors ( http://www.jeld-wen.com), a U.S. company with a wide network of Canadian distributors, five in the Toronto area alone. There may be other companies that do this or something similar, but JELD-WEN came to my attention and I was impressed with what I saw.
With JELD-WEN's system, there's no end of creative ways to reflect your individualism, like the owner of the "gone fishing" door, pictured here, did. Sure, they already have an inventory of more than 70 designs to choose from, but use your imagination to carve out your own ideas. How about having your child's name and an image that reflects their personality embellishing their bedroom door? What eight-year-old wouldn't love that?
Engrave the likeness of a movie projector into the entrance to a media room; an Andy Warhol-ish Campbell Soup can on the walk-in pantry door; your company logo on your office door. Make your own wine? Announce your personal winery's name, perhaps along with some grapes and vines, on your wine cellar entry. This is two-dimensional door art of the sky's-the-limit kind!
They do it by routering a pattern or lettering, virtually anything you can dream up, into a single sheet of refined MDF, which is then buffed and polished to produce a finish that looks like real wood. Because the routering technology they use is so advanced, they can get quite detailed with patterns, too.
But don't let the fun and attractive looks fool you into thinking these are frivolous creatures or what I referred to in an earlier column, the trophy wives of door land. They mean business. They come primed for painting and many of their designs feature the type of raised mouldings you find on high-end wood doors.
Their stiles (part of the internal framing system that gives a door stability and strength) are made of finger-jointed pine to hold screws solidly and ward against expansion, shrinkage and warping. Polystyrene cores make them a third lighter than most MDF doors; they have a 20-minute fire rating, a notable noise reduction classification, and a five-year warranty. So there are some pretty impressive specs hiding behind that fish, or whatever other quirky façade you might choose.
Elizabeth Rand-Watkinson is the principal of Terrier Group, which specializes in interior design. Reno Adventures appears weekly, covering all aspects of home renovation. Send your feedback
and suggestions to lrandwatkinson@globeandmail.ca.