It crops up now and again that we are asked to make furniture with solid wood doors.

Why not?  Well, firstly what do we mean by solid wood doors? Our Kingston, five piece and seven piece doors are made from pieces of solid wood  (see Study/Office - CEO’s Office) in the way that cabinet makers and joiners have been making wooden doors for centuries.  They are expensive but they work.

What some people are looking for are flat solid wood doors (see Study/Office - Oak and Walnut) and yes, as you can see, we can and occassionaly do, make flat, solid wood doors at a client’s request.

However, experience has shown us that the craftsmen of old knew what they were doing when they developed the five piece door. Because the five piece construction allows for a degree of independent movement between the component parts and because the grain in the various components runs in different directions, the design has a balancing effect that minimises, but does not totally eliminate the tendency of timbers to split or warp as they adapt to the specific and changing humidity in a particular house. Due, of course to changing climatic conditions and artificial influences such as central heating.

Flat solid wood doors simply do not work in the same way as five piece doors and we know, to our cost, that they are troublesome.  In the instance of the Oak and Walnut study cited above, there has been some splitting but, fortunately, no warping and the client understands that this is the price of insisting on solid wood flat doors.

It is also interesting to note that the great cabinet makers of old, like Chippendale and Sherrington and laterley McIntosh did not make doors from solid wood.  In fact, they were very sparing in their use of exotic and expensive timbers that had been hauled halfway around the world.  They would make legs and frameworks and table tops from solid indigenous woods, such as beech and elm and oak but when it came to doors they would make them in the five piece method or use blockboard, probably prepared by their apprentices, from locally grown hardwoods, in which the blocks were brought together with their grains in opposing directions to balance the strains, and then veneer them with thin layers of decorative woods such as walnut or mahogany.

Today, we do not use blockboard to a great extent because particle boards and mdf are now available in superior qualities, that are not only less expensive, but also much more stable than any other timber based substrate. Bear in mind that particle board and mdf are timber based but totally free of grain with its wayward tendency. Chippendale would have used mdf if it had been available.

We also run a small trade  side to our furniture manufacturing business, that supplies kitchen studios with bespoke doors in sizes and designs that are not generally available from major kitchen manufacturers. Here we make a lot of five piece real wood doors in oak, cherry, walnut, maple and other exotic timbers, and very succesfully.  However, we have been asked, and occasionally have made solid, flat hardwood doors and frankly they are a nightmare.

So what is our policy on solid hardwood, flat doors?  If you insist, we will use them for modest sized doors in, say, a study or wall unit on the understanding that you accept some movement, but on wardrobes? NO WAY.

I personally have nearly 50 years experience in the furniture trade and Options have over 25 and we say, unequivocally, don’t go there. Flat, wood veneered doors look great and are very modern (see Fitted Bedrooms - Stunning Zebrano), but take a tip from me and Mr Chippendale; insist on them being veneered!