Door Shopping

The doors in our house are long overdue for replacement. Like really long overdue. I've wanted to replace them since we moved into our house almost 22 years ago. The doors are just plain ugly, dark and hollow.

We have an ongoing list of potential home repair projects. Sometimes items that are lower on the list make their way closer to the top for various reasons. Door replacement was one of those items. However, all it took for it to move up in ranking of importance was for us to discover that there was a very unsightly hole in one door. (Our full-length mirror broke and we learned of the hole behind the mirror. The prevoius home owners probably put the mirror on the door to cover the hole.)

Lance did his homework and was ready to take me to the large warehouse home supply store to show me what he learned. Now I must confess that I don't like to be presented with too many choices because I easily become overwhelmed. Here are some of the door choices I was asked to make:
1. Hollow, foam-filled, or solid wood (in order of cost)?
2. Stain or paint?
3. Color?
4. Style?
5. Cost?
Now for the next confession. I tend to pick the most expensive item not because I know it's expensive. I just have very expensive taste. I don't mean to; I just do! Keep that in mind.

In trying to make the aforementioned choices, we had to consider if we wanted the doors to match our home decor (early Halloween style) or go with something totally different which would create imbalance and then we'd have to replace everything else to match the doors. Although I wanted to choose something totally different, I do have a frugal, sensible bone or two in my body, so I decided to make my choices align with our current decor. Here's what I chose:
1. Solid wood
2. Stain
3. Honey oak
4. Horizontal panels (3, 4, or 5)--anything but the usual 6 vertical panels
5. As inexpensive as possible

After consulting with a door "expert," we learned that we could get each custom-ordered door (13 plus 6 sliding closet doors) for $273 each not including hardware, stain and varnish. My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. We are not putting Lexus doors in a Ford Pinto house!!! I had to re-think my choices. This is what we will probably "end up" with:
1. Solid wood
2. Stain
3. Honey oak
4. 6-paneled
5. Store stock (more like $150 each)
We're still in the comparison shopping phase, but it looks like we will get new doors sooner than later. Lance is starting with his closet door since it's the least visible and if he messes up, no one will be see (except us).