My house was built around 1890. Nothing is square, plumb, or done in any of today's standard sizes. I have four bedrooms, and all of the doors are in sorry shape. They're painted stile-and-rail four-panel doors. Three of the four doors have cracked panels, and one also appears to have a cracked stile. (They've been like this since I bought the house). It appears that a previous owner tried to fill the cracks with wood filler, but it's an awful repair that really stands out. On top of it all, I'm sure that there must be lead paint in all the layers of paint on the doors, so any work I do will have to be conscious of that.

I've seen estimates of several hundred dollars per door, just to professionally strip the doors, without even repairing the damage. I'm sure a craftsman could repair them, but I have no clue about cost. And I have neither the experience nor the equipment to handle fabricating new panels myself.

I'm considering getting rid of all 4 doors and replacing them with modern four-panel doors. I would just replace the slabs, not use a prehung unit. Unfortunately, all the modern replacements I've found are 1 3/8" thick, and my doors are 1 1/8" thick. If I did replace them, I'm thinking I would have to enlarge the hinge mortises on the jamb for a bigger hinge, move the stops, and adjust the latch strikes. I think I could do that.

My wife would prefer to keep the doors, since they're probably original to the house. (I know, happy wife, happy life). I also agree they're neat. But we're also budget-conscious. Our house is old, but not ornate. It's not historically preserved or anything like that. There's no reason we couldn't replace them.

I'd love some opinions on whether it's reasonable to repair them or not, and if my plan for replacing the slabs sounds feasible. Or any other options that I hadn't considered. Thanks!

 

Pictures showing the damage would be helpful. But, old solid wood doors are very repairable. The trick is finding someone to do the repair. The cost will also depend on whether or not you are paying someone to simply repair your cracked panels or replace them with new wood. The price will be higher if you want the same species/type of wood as your originals. And, in the current labor market everything is quite expensive. Especially a labor intensive task like repairing antique doors. For fun watch Youtube's of old This Old House episodes where they repair old doors and you will see what can be involved. Then below that are numerous repairs that might not be as good but could be less expensive.

Replacing the doors with modern pre-hung would probably be the least expensive for the door but then you'd have to add in a higher installation cost. The trim molding for a off the shelf pre-hung door is likely a different size than your existing so you open the can of worms of how to trim the room. I just had one where the door molding was about 6" wide mahogany. Replacing with a store bought door would leave a several inch gap between the door's stock molding and the house's base moldings. Do you get or make matching molding for the new door or remove the other molding in the room and replace with modern or go back to repairing the original doors.

My personal choice is to repair the original doors if at all possible or live with some cracks. Any modern door of similar quality will be very expensive and custom made. You could be looking at several hundred per door to disassemble your old ones and make new panels to replace the split ones. A good craftsman might offer the option of removing the broken panels and putting them back together with biscuits. Not as perfect as new panels but likely less expensive.

 

I'd bet it wouldn't take a whole lot to fix the bad repairs so they'd be acceptable
pics could prove me wrong

 

Since they are painted you should be able to repair, at least a cosmetic fix. But yeah a photo would be nice

 

And, just be aware that "modern" doors, depending on how they are constructed, may have very limited customization capacity.

Example, a simple Masonite door only has so much "trimmable" area around the perimeter so you may have to step up to more expensive solid door so your cost difference between repair and new may not be as great!

 

The first photo is one of the doors that I stripped. The crack is about 1/8" wide. The next one shows one of the repairs that was done prior to buying the house. I suppose if a little more sanding had been done to feather the edges, it wouldn't be so noticeable.

I'm not opposed to filler if it can be made to look OK. I'm just not sure how well it will hold up.

 

Yikes. Yeah I would probably opt for new solid pine doors, and remove and replace the door stops after the new doors are hung. You will have to get good at mortising hinges. I have several hinge jigs and use a small Bosch Colt trim router for that sort of thing. You can dry fit the doors as you trim them to check for out of square and out of plumb.

Those panels break like that when paint glues them to the rails and stiles so that the panel can no longer float freely.

 

When the customer agrees I just caulk those types of cracks. The crack will still be slightly visible but the void will be gone and the caulk is flexible enough to stay put. You want the caulk just in the crack and not onto the rest of the wood.

 

What's the best way to prevent the paint from gluing the panel to the rails/stiles?

I might as well try to caulk it, since I have the one door stripped. If it doesn't work out, then I have a lead on replacement solid pine door slabs for around $300, and they have enough trimmable area that I could cut them down to fit. But either way, I'll need to make sure I don't create more cracks.

 

You could take a utility knife and score the paint at the joint. Personally I prefer to stain/poly wood panel doors. The poly doesn't have to be redone as often along with the fact the 'crack' at the joint isn't as noticeable. Less coats means less chance of paint/poly build up over the joint.

It's possible that as old as the doors are along with modern day HVAC keeping the humidity more constant that it won't be a big issue going forward.

 

Thanks. Do you think caulking the panel joints would give them enough flex to not crack? I'm just thinking that if I try to repair the panels by caulking, I would want to repaint the door, to hide the repair better.

 

Probably, won't know until you try and give it a year or so.

 

You could get new panels made at a local woodshop and replace them yourself. Or if you know someone with a shaper you could make replacement panels yourself.

 

Not so sure about that. You'd have to be able to get the rails and stiles apart in order to do that.

 

I have seen some thicker doors (usually exterior) that hold the panels in with trim strips on one side. Hard to tell from the pictures but yours probably do not. You might be able to cut off the simple quarter round profile like the one on the stripped door to remove the panel and replace the it with mitered quarter round trim pieces to hold it in if the panel groove is no deeper than the size of the quarter round. I did that once on an interior door to replace a wood panel with Plexiglass.

Once the panel is out it might just be a simple glue and clamp project to fix the crack. Or a replacement panel.