Internal doors - things to consider when building or renovating a house

Good quality contemporary internal doors can dramatically affect the style and feel of a house. They are the key centre pieces of a room, making the first impression as visitors as they enter your home. They are the things you touch and use most in a house and it makes a big difference if you get it right. Internal doors need a lot of planning and should be a major consideration during the design phase, especially the sizing. Below we’ll go into our top things to think about when building or renovating your house.

The internal door openings will be formed at a very early stage in the build process, possibly long before you have considered which internal doors are to be fitted. Although internal doors don’t need to be ordered until later in the build process it’s worth talking to your chosen supplier about sizes before the openings are formed. Most door suppliers still work to old imperial, standard sizes which are quite small, Deuren doors are available up to 880mm wide and 2100mm high in the first price category, this means you could have taller or wider doors for the same price (our maximum width is 1600mm and maximum height is 2900mm!).

Hinge direction can have a huge impact on where you place your doors. Get it wrong and you could find yourself with the light switches behind the door when you enter the room! It is well worth deciding hinge directions early on, before the first fix, then you can have the light switches installed so that they are in the right place when you open the door into a room.

This sounds obvious but you’d be surprised how many door openings are built out of square or uneven. It’s worth installing cheap temporary liners at the agreed wall thickness so that your plasterers and tilers have something to work to, that way when the door is fitted you get a much better fit and don’t get doors opening or closing by themselves! 

It’s worth keeping all the final finished floor levels at the same height if possible, for example, if you had a tiled bathroom floor leading to a carpeted hallway, the top of the tile should be at the same height as the top of the carpet. This way you don’t have any awkward steps or transitions between rooms and creates clean lines throughout the home. If this is not possible Deuren can supply matching or non-matching timber plinths that are the full thickness of the wall.

Door type will normally be led by the look and feel you want, however, sometimes a different type of door may suit an opening better than a hinged door. This is when practicality becomes a consideration. Perhaps to save space you could use a sliding door on an ensuite or you might need a door that slides completely out of the way into a wall. Sliding and pocket doors are becoming increasingly more popular thanks to their space-saving qualities. We can match pocket doors to hinged doors in terms of style and colours, so you need not worry about consistency. We have lots of solutions available, just have a chat with us and we can recommend what is right for you.

Try to avoid constructing a door opening where one or both sides are flat against a wall, in this case, the architraves would need to be cut down and they never look as good. It’s important to try and imagine the finished article in place, and consider all the aspects of the door so that everything is in place when fitting it. This is why we only manufacture pre-hung internal door sets, allowing us to create each aspect of your dream door, before assembling it in our factory to ensure a flawless fit and function.

If the doors are fitted too early there is always a risk of accidental damage when other tradesmen are working in the house. Deuren door sets are designed in a way that they can be fitted almost at the end of the build process after floors are laid and decorating has been completed. This allows you to progress building work without having to wait for our doors, and your investment will not be damaged.

When installing regular doors there are normally a lot of fixtures and fittings to buy and fit before you can install the doors. This takes time and costs money. Deuren door sets are pre-finished and require no decorating, they are fixed using invisible fixings so no screw or nails holes to fill! They come complete with everything you need and so you won’t be searching around for screws at the final hour.