Major questions when purchasing new doors
Beautiful doors for your home make a statement and can either enhance or spoil the look of the whole building. Consequently choosing new or replacement doors is an important decision, to ensure they fit with your living environment. They have to be practical yet attractive, secure yet easy to use, functional but elegant. It’s a lot to ask from an item!
What is the overall style of your home?
There are many types of houses, from modern to traditional, contemporary designer built to country cottages, converted barns to townhouses. Every type of building has styles of doors which are appropriate, and many which are definitely not.
Do I need modern doors for modern homes?
Think simple and clean design, with none of the potentially fussy extra touches such as ornamental glazing, which suit older properties better. Classical unfussy doors work best with contemporary, newly designed buildings, using high quality materials.
Traditional looks for older properties?
With older houses, such as cottages and stone built country homes, extra touches are permissible and add an extra special elegance to the look of the property. Individually designed antique handles, knockers, picture glazing and other personal touches work well.
Does wood work best for doors?
Natural materials have an extra high quality appearance and doors made of wood can add that extra superior element to the appearance of your home. Wooden doors are generally more expensive than vinyl but they will last for decades and can be designed in different colors, sizes and shapes to fit any situation.
There are wood lookalikes but nothing beats the character and sophistication of the real thing. It is still possible to have glazing in the doors, so they don’t have to be all wood and you can have your glazing designed to suit your personal taste. Ask for an expert to come out and give advice on your door requirements; companies such as Velfac will be happy to come out to do a free consultation.
Should I get my doors professionally measured?
Never buy new doors without having the openings measured by experts – unless you are supremely confident that you can do the measuring yourself, of course. This is another reason for having a professional specialist come out to do a survey and measure up free of charge, so you can get a quote based on actual measurements rather than your estimate over the telephone or by email.
It is so important to get the doors measured square and especially with older properties as there may be fluctuations in the width and height measurements which an expert can take care of in the engineering of the doors. Designing and fitting doors is a complex job which is buying off the shelf rarely gets the same end result as employing a specialist company from the outset. It is also possible that the area the door is to be fitted does not need some remedial work, for example if there has been damage or a lot of wear over the years, and this can be advised and attended to by your professional design company.
By Petar Dzhingarov