Stable Door - Advice Required

[OPJ]

Hi guys,

We were recently given this lovely set of stable doors by a friend who was having some work done on their house. My intentions, having not previously measured it myself, were to hang this set in place of our current back door. It looks like the the doors are 1/2"~40mm too wide for the current frame; I'm pretty sure 3/4"~20mm is too much to take of each side.

So, my first question would be whether you agree with this? The stiles are 4" in width, plus the width of mouldings.

If the general opinion of the forum is that I am right :wink: , then I will want to look at selling these on and making some kind of profit.

These doors don't look any more than a couple of years old. The timber looks very much like Iroko, which, as you'll know, is very durable indeed for exterior joinery and furniture. What you can't see from the photo, though, is that the doors were hung the wrong way round previously (inside face on the outside, and vice-versa), which means there is some light weathering on the inside face.

You should be able to see some splashes of paint in the bottom right-hand corner. This is, presumably, from where they've been redecorating previously, ...with the doors the wrong way around! :roll:

Rebated, yes. Which makes for very good draft-proofing.

These doors even have some very nice through-tenon joinery on show (twins for the bottom rail), which appear to have been fox-wedged - not something I've seen very often in joinery work! - as opposed to driving the wedges either side of the tenon.

I'm hoping that someone may be able to give me an idea of how much money I should be looking to get for this (these?) door(s)?

I imagine it would attract more interest if I were to clean up some of the mess and re-finish it first though... Any suggestions here?

Ripping out the old frame and having to build/buy, fit and finish a new one... That's just not for me! If the buyers did ask me to fit the door for them however, I know life is made much easier by temporarily fixing the two halves together with some scrap lengths of timber, but how would you hide the screw holes after? I've never had any luck using fillers with solid timber. :? :shock:

I can't think of any more questions right now, but if anyone can get back to me with any suggestions for any or all of the above, I'd be very grateful indeed.

Thanks for your time,

Olly.

 

[dickm]

Hmmmm. I've been caught that way too . I suspect 20mm off each side would make the whole thing look very odd, although probably not structurally unsound.
Difficult to suggest a price; I've been looking in ScotAds for something similar for my daughter's house, and prices seem to be anything between £25 and £250. That stained glass looks nice to me, but others might well hate it.
Sorry, not much help!

 

[mr]

I was quoted £500 for an all wood (ie no glass) stable door made to measure and fitted if that helps.

Cheers Mike

 

[Digit]

I've taken that amount off for the same reason. I wasn't gonna look a gift horse in the teeth, nobody's commented about it looking odd.
Unusual to find such a well made door these days, most seem to be dowelled rather than M and Ts.
What have you got to lose? Cut it!

Roy.

 

[Shadowfax]

Cut it/them! I am sure if you do the door will still be structurally very sound indeed and the only person who might think it looks slightly odd will be you. Just don't point it out to your friends.
Go for it. It is a very nice door. It would be a shame to waste it.
Cheers.

SF

 

[Gary M]

Before cutting your door, check the depth of the lock, some can be quite deep.(you wouldn't want to blow out the back of the stile)although from what i can see you should be ok.
Also check that after taking 20mm off the lock side stile, repositioning the locks (top and bottom) wont leave you with a hole from the previous position that the handle (top) and escutcheon (bottom) won't cover.
(as they will be moved 20mm inwards)
You may have problems.
HTH
Gary.

 

[OPJ]

Thanks for your replies, everyone.

You've commented on my two biggest concerns, which I forgot to mention in the original post - how 'odd' the door would look afterwards and, of course, the depth of the lock itself.

I'm still quite tempted to sell this one and get some iroko and follow the same design for myself... I feel confident enough, certainly and, it would look in good proportion. Also, I'd hate to think of any future occupants deciding to chop it and burn it because it looks a little odd. :?

Out of interest, I'm still keen to know how you'd go about fitting it as one, with leaving screw holes where you've previously had the two halves held together? Is Yacht varnish good for an Iroko stable door?

For anyone else interested, it does look like something that's been bought (ie. from Magnet) rather than an item which was made in a local joinery shop, due to the stamping on the top and bottom (don't have a photo', I'm afraid).

Thanks for all your help.