Upcycling Doors | Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle

So much goes into changing the floor plan of a house - walls are torn down, rebuilt, redecorated, new lighting. All those were the obvious things to me but one thing I didn't think of, or expect to be expensive or a lot of work, was all the interior doors.

Original door to the downstairs bathroom.

As part of the design stages with Baillie Baillie, we had our plans priced out by a quantity surveyor (cost consultant). We have a total of 11 interior doors in the house. The QS estimated £500/door plus 20% VAT and 10% contingency - that added up to over £7,000! Let that sink in for a minute while I pick my jaw up off the floor. We knew there had to be a more cost effective solution as we couldn't afford that.

Old glass doors from the future play room and Gavin's office to be thrown out.

We already had some four panel doors in the house we were keen to refinish, but we didn't have enough doors. Some of the doors we had didn't match and also had glass panels that we didn't believe was safety glass, which we didn't feel comfortable having in the house with (almost!) two young babies.

Successful visit to Glasgow Architectural Salvage.

We decided to check out the Holyrood Architectural Salvage as well as the Glasgow Architectural Salvage to see if we could find doors that matched the existing doors we were hoping to refinish. We found the doors at the Edinburgh location to be nearly double the price of the doors at Glasgow Architectural Salvage! Not to mention the service was fantastic there too. They have all the doors arranged by size and style. If the door still has paint on it, they can send it off to be dipped to strip the door of all the paint. We managed to get doors in decent condition ranging in price from £60-80 each.

Last minute adjustments to some doors before priming.

Getting the doors at such a reduced price did mean we needed to put some work into them. Some of them needed to be clamped and glued back together. The other issue we came across was Building Control requires new door openings to be a certain width so they are wheel chair accessible. A lot of old doors don't meet this requirement so they needed adjusted. Lucky for us, we have access to Gavin's dad's workshop, Gerald Spence Cabinets, to add material onto the doors to adjust the sizes where needed.

Gavin filling in large holes with bits of wood.

You can see here where material was added onto the side of the door to make it wider. We also filled in holes with wood and filler should we decide to change the location of the knob. Once the doors were the right size and all large holes were filled in, it was time to prime all of the doors. With a quick coat of primer, it is easier to see where there are gaps or other wee holes that need filled in.

8/11 doors layed out in an assembly line, ready to be filled with wood filler.

Once all the doors were primed, we used a two part wood filler that filled in the gaps and holes in pretty much one go, with the exception of some really stubborn holes of course. The fumes were pretty strong so be sure to have good ventilation if you decide to use it. We needed a couple of tins but with 11 doors that needed quite a bit of work that wasn't surprising.

All the doors adjusted, primed, filled and sanded.

Once all of the doors were filled in, it was time to sand them down to try and get a smooth surface. This part is MESSY! We weren't living in the house at the time so it was dusty anyways, but if you are I recommend doing this outside. Some of the primer was sanded off in doing this, but at least it allowed us to see where on each of the doors it needed filled in.

Once all of the doors were pretty much ready to be hung and then painted, we needed to decide what kind of hardware we wanted for them. In keeping with the black and white facade of the house, we decided we would paint the doors white and get matt black hinges, knobs and latches. It seems like the sky is the limit when it comes to how much you want to spend on these types of things. After shopping around we thought the style, quality and price of Zoo Hardware was what we were after.

The first door hung and functioning perfectly.

Getting the first door hung in Gavin's office felt quite symbolic after all the work that went into preparing the doors. It feels really good to be able to close the door and know everything in his office is finished, apart from the decorating. There's a couple more doors in the process of getting hung, and we're still waiting on some more of the door frames to be built too. At last, we have one room we can close the door and pretty much say, all done.