Doors part 1 | Best Advice for Interior Doors

Summary

Dear Alice | Interior Design Podcast Summary

Episode: Doors Part 1 | Best Advice for Interior Doors
Release Date: December 19, 2024
Hosts: Jessica Bennett and Suzanne Hall, with guest Corey Place

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Introduction to Interior Doors

In this episode of Dear Alice, hosts Jessica Bennett and Suzanne Hall, alongside guest Corey Place, delve into the often-overlooked yet crucial element of interior design: doors. Emphasizing that doors are not just functional components but also key elements that reflect personal style and architectural integrity, the hosts set the stage for an in-depth exploration of door selection, styles, and best practices.

Listener’s Question: Do’s and Don’ts of Interior Doors

The episode centers around a listener, Sophie’s, question:

Sophie asks: "What are the do's and don'ts of interior doors? Are single panel doors going out of style? What type of door style, paneling, or trim is timeless? And does the door style all need to be the same?"

Recognizing the depth of Sophie’s inquiry, Jessica remarks at [12:31] ("We have two parts to doors, this episode is part one."), indicating a comprehensive approach to the topic.

Anatomy of a Door

To ensure clarity, Corey provides a breakdown of door anatomy at [16:13]:

Corey: "We're going to start with the slab itself. The slab is the door. When it's off of the hinges, it's just the entire door."

He further explains components such as:

• Stiles (S T I L E): Vertical sides of the door.
• Rails: Horizontal connectors between stiles, including top, bottom, and intermediate rails.
• Panels: Sections framed by stiles and rails, which can vary in number and style.
• Threshold/Sweep: The bottom part that ensures an airtight seal.

Corey: "The hardware counts big time when you're dealing with such a simple profile as a slab door. It really has to dictate the style that you are going for."

Types of Interior Doors

1. Slab Doors

Jessica showcases slab doors, highlighting their simplicity and suitable contexts:

Jessica: "This would be like your mid-century homes or contemporary homes. They are your least expensive door style just to have like no profiles or paneling on it at all."

Corey adds practical insights on customization:

Corey: "If someone has slab doors that are awesome doors, you could put an applied molding on that to create detail. It's usually more cost-effective to have the door shop make a custom door rather than hiring a finish carpenter."

2. Single Panel Doors

The discussion transitions to single panel doors, examining their relevance and styling:

Suzanne: "If you're building a stocked house and that's the door you select, go aftermarket and add trim to make you look a lot more expensive."

Corey emphasizes the aesthetic benefits:

Corey: "A shaker is going to have a flat panel, giving more dimension to the door."

3. Multi-Panel Doors (Two, Three, Six Panels)

Suzanne expresses her preference for multi-panel doors:

Suzanne: "I love the three-panel door. It feels very classic and gives the door more dimension."

Corey discusses the proportional aspects:

Corey: "You want smaller middle rails to enhance detail and dimension, which elongates the door and aligns with the 36-inch center for doorknobs."

4. Jib Doors

Introducing jib doors, the hosts explain their discreet functionality:

Jessica: "A jib door is typically a slab door that blends seamlessly into the wall, often used to hide entrances to less prominent areas like closets or powder rooms."

Suzanne highlights practical applications:

Suzanne: "In our Capitol Heights project, we used jib doors to maintain the rhythm of paneling without cluttering the space with multiple door outlines."

5. Glass Detail Doors (French Doors)

The benefits of incorporating glass into doors are discussed:

Suzanne: "French doors are great for transferring natural light between rooms without sacrificing privacy."

Corey adds technical details:

Corey: "A three-quarter door means the glass covers about two-thirds of the door’s height, enhancing both aesthetics and light flow."

Door Trim and Casing

Jessica and Corey emphasize the importance of door casing in overall design:

Corey: "I don't like a single header casing. I prefer a mitered casing with 45-degree angles that outline the door neatly."

Jessica: "Picking your baseboard first helps in selecting the appropriate casing to ensure cohesive design throughout the space."

Do’s and Don'ts of Interior Doors

The hosts outline key recommendations for selecting and installing interior doors:

Do’s:

• Maintain Consistency: Ensure door styles complement the home's overall architectural style.
• Customize Hardware: Invest in quality hardware to elevate simple door designs.
• Opt for Solid Core Doors: Especially for rooms requiring privacy, like bathrooms and home offices.

Don'ts:

• Avoid Single Sidelights: Jessica advises against having only one sidelight, a trend seen in older homes, as it can disrupt visual balance. [55:05]

  Jessica: "Don't do the sidelight at all if you have to. You could do a front door that has some glass in it, like a half light or something."

• Steer Clear of Hollow Core Doors: For areas needing soundproofing and durability, hollow core doors are inadequate.

  Suzanne: "You heard it here, don't. Hollow core doors look terrible over time due to wear and tear, especially with rough use."

• Refrain from Barn Doors: Core Opinion:

  Corey: "No, no, no. That ship sailed long ago."

  Suzanne adds a rare exception for artistic installations:

  Suzanne: "We did a very slick rail where you cannot see the wheels running on the track. It was more of an art installation than a typical barn door."

Practical Tips and Best Practices

• Fire Ratings: Corey stresses the importance of choosing fire-rated doors, especially between the garage and home.

  Corey: "You have to make sure that they'll have a fire-rated version so you can keep that separation safe."

• Mock-Ups: Suzanne recommends creating door mock-ups with finish workers to visualize proportions and trims before final installation.

  Suzanne: "Have them mock up your door to make sure you like the proportions and the trims integrated."

• Door Measurements: Understanding standard sizes (e.g., 3’0” wide doors) is crucial for functionality and aesthetic balance.

  Suzanne: "For standard homes, doors are usually around 36 inches wide."

Conclusion and Next Steps

As the episode wraps up, Jessica and Suzanne encourage listeners to consider their door choices carefully, aligning them with both functional needs and design aspirations. They tease the next episode, which promises to continue the exploration of doors, ensuring that listeners are well-equipped to make informed decisions in their interior design projects.

Jessica: "We have a free design service available to help you find new furniture, rugs, and art pieces to complement your door selections."

Listeners are invited to engage further by submitting questions and following the hosts on their various social media platforms for more design inspiration and insights.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jessica at [22:30]: "If you're going to spring for a solid door somewhere, make sure it's in a room that deserves the privacy, like the powder bath or the home office."

• Corey at [55:05]: "I built them in the early 2000s. Sure did. So if you have the room, get a front door that is unique and has glass above to maintain light flow without disrupting the balance."

• Suzanne at [34:05]: "If you have a traditional historic home that you're fixing up, the multi-panel doors like five or six panels can add charm and authenticity."

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, providing valuable insights into interior door selection and design while incorporating direct quotes to highlight key points.

Transcript

[Jessica]

Foreign.

[Suzanne]

Welcome to Dear Alice. A lifestyle approach to interior design.

[Jessica]

Hi everyone. Welcome to Dear Alice. Today we are going to be talking about doors.

[Suzanne]

I cannot wait.

[Jessica]

I know.

[Suzanne]

How long I've been waiting to talk about doors.

[Corey]

How long I've been waiting to talk about doors. For real.

[Jessica]

It's kind of fun because it's holiday. Right. We're gonna be celebrating Christmas. Those of you that celebrate next Thursday, I'm sorry, this is the Thursday before Christmas. So I don't know, I kind of picture the wreath on the front door and. Right. It's kind of your face to the world. I feel like you're always looking for the front door when you're driving by a house.

[Corey]

It's the thing that everyone notices about your home, good or bad.

[Jessica]

When we're looking at a set of plans, I'm always like, where's the front door? I gotta get myself. Yes. Yeah. And when you can't find the door easily, you're like, this is a. This is a garbage plan. It's broken. Yeah.

[Corey]

Yeah. I went to. I went to a house over the weekend. It was the situation where the front door's like around where you kind of pull into. I was like, that's crazy to me.

[Suzanne]

But like in the man door.

[Corey]

Yeah. I guess I'm gonna knock on your kitchen window. I don't know.

[Jessica]

Oh, good times.

[Corey]

Before we get into that.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

The holidays coming up, I want to know you guys. Christmas plans or traditions, whatever thought. Yeah.

[Suzanne]

Talk about that. Well, if I must. I love Christmas. I love Christmas traditions. I love food. So again, all these things tailor around a holiday, which is fantastic. I have these little kids that are so cute. So the elf is in full swing. Been doing that for every night.

[Jessica]

Bless you.

[Suzanne]

Along with.

[Jessica]

That's a part time job that are listening.

[Suzanne]

It's not me, I swear. But it's really fun. Like Christmas with children is really, really fun. And like the older they get, the more they get into it, which has been really, really exciting. But tradition wise, every year we make peanut brittle like my mom. It's like my grandpa's recipe that he made when he was alive.

[Corey]

It's amazing.

[Suzanne]

It is amazing. I'm like peanut brittle. Usually it'll break your teeth. Right. This stuff is like carbonated. It is good. Anyway, so my aunts, my sister, there's kids running around. We're usually doing that like on a Saturday before Christmas, which is so fun. And we take it to all of our neighbors. And then. Oh gosh. And then Aunt Annie Spudnuts, my mom Makes donuts between Christmas and New Year's and like it's a full fledged thing. And she just, like, her whole kitchen is just like filled with flour in the air and everybody's wearing aprons and you smell glaze. And anyway, that's Christmas. So I'm like, I can't wait for it.

[Jessica]

Such a scene. I love it.

[Suzanne]

I'm excited for my kids, as they're getting older to start seeing these things and like understanding what that, how that, I don't know, fractions into the Christmas traditions amidst all the other beautiful things.

[Jessica]

But yeah, I wish I could play cooking. I wish I could play that movie in my house and watch that whole scene just play out.

[Suzanne]

I'm gonna make a real.

[Jessica]

Yeah, yeah. It's just Little women. That's so fun.

[Suzanne]

It's really, really fun.

[Jessica]

Really great.

[Suzanne]

So that. And it's just always. I also love the chaos of Christmas. I love shopping.

[Jessica]

We.

[Suzanne]

I love retail. I love the traffic. I love that. I know that that is like the Achilles sale for so many people that do not like Christmas season. For that reason. I love it. I like, get energy when I'm out. Like, you go to the mall, it charges your battery. First time since junior high, you're like, this is so fantastic. The one time you go a year, you always end up at the mall some way, getting a last minute. And it's so much fun for me. You guys feel the same way?

[Jessica]

I do feel the same way.

[Corey]

I feel the. When you go to the mall in July and there's like nine people there, you're like, I feel like it's America's broken. It makes me stressed out. I'm like, I'm never spending another cent. I got to save all my money. The economy's horrible. Yeah. So when I see people out, I'm like, yes, yes. That feels like Jim Hye again.

[Jessica]

Yes. You want somebody to be selling warm nuts out of a, out of a kiosk, right?

[Suzanne]

Yes. And getting some like Pillsbury ham or whatever. What that, like, random cheese booth in the middle of the mall. Oh, remember that?

[Corey]

Some summer sausage.

[Suzanne]

Yes.

[Jessica]

Yeah. Wait, no. What's it called?

[Suzanne]

Starts with an H. I'm like Hillsbury. A farm.

[Corey]

Yeah. Hillshire.

[Jessica]

No, no.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Jessica]

No. Something is like Huckleberry. Everybody is driving in their cars right now screaming the name out loud. Sorry, guys. You know what we're talking about with the summer sausage. And I'm always like, how does that cheese stay fresh that's been shrink wrapped?

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

That smoked cheddar.

[Corey]

You don't have questions about it when.

[Suzanne]

You'Re passing by and you don't make eye contact if you don't want to bite.

[Jessica]

Yeah, yeah. And then mouth tastes so smoky afterward and you're like, I need a hot chocolate. That was a lot. Yeah. So fun chocolate.

[Suzanne]

Well, I have a lot to do between now and next week, so.

[Jessica]

Yeah, but you love the chaos, so it's going to be so fun.

[Suzanne]

Yeah, I thrive on chaos.

[Jessica]

Yeah, totally.

[Suzanne]

What about you?

[Jessica]

We have a really cute tradition that my parents made when we were, I'm going to say when I was in middle school, it's the same thing as junior high, but my parents got a timeshare in Park City and we all, they made their week the week before Christmas. So we would always go up to Park City and ski that week before Christmas. And it was really fun once we all got married because then they got, you know, different timeshare, bigger units and room for all of us, six kids to come home with now our families. And so we ski the week before Christmas. And it is so fun because you have to sort of fight over like, oh, whose year is it to be with this parent or that parent and then you have a family of your own. You're like, oh, maybe we skipped spend Christmas at our own home and not go to the parents. Or it's always a big to do is like, where do you spend it? And so I love that my parents sort of carved out this little secret week before the holiday because then we get all of our family time in and it's just the ultimate winter scene, just skiing and watching the little kids that are learning how to make a big wedge and come down the hill and everybody meets at Deer Valley and has lunch in the lodge. And it's just really idyllic and so fun. And when I think of holidays, I always think of a much larger, longer holiday because we have this whole week before the before the holidays, which feels like Christmas prelude. And then of course, Christmas is fine now to spend with just my two kids and my husband at our own house. And you get to sort of control that environment. But I always think of Park City.

[Corey]

That's awesome.

[Jessica]

Yeah, that's good. How about you, Corey?

[Corey]

So it's not, I don't know how many years it needs to go on before it's a tradition. But last year we did this after this beautiful one. But yeah, it's the same thing like with my in laws, you know, so and so is going to their in laws. And so not everyone's together. But Last year we're like, we're just going to have whoever can come over for Christmas Eve at our house. And we did fettuccine Alfredo, homemade fettuccine Alfredo. And then it ended up being like my sister in law. So my wife's sister, her in laws live pretty close by, like in the neighborhood over. So they're like, we'll just come over there after we're done like doing. And so it turned, it turned out to be like Christmas Eve after party at our house.

[Suzanne]

And it was so much fun.

[Corey]

The kids stayed up late. They loved it. Yeah. I had my. My wife's grandma passed away a few years ago and then she had a bunch of records and so I took all the records and there were a bunch of Christmas ones. So I play those on like the record player and they. When my mother in law came over, she was like, I used to listen to this record when I was like a little kid. Like, it's amazing. So we listen to all those records. It's just. Yeah, it's just nostalgic and fun. It was like cool for us to host.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

So, yeah. After party.

[Jessica]

The after party really is the best. Yeah. As a company, we've always hosted an after party after the holidays because just trying to get ready retail wise and get everybody else ready and out the door and shopped and we're just all exhausted and client gifts and everything else. So we kind of celebrate holidays early in January or later in December and do a big after party, which is so fun.

[Corey]

It really is.

[Jessica]

Yeah. But that reminded me of the holiday where Jack Black says a little Christmas fettuccine. Oh, yeah.

[Corey]

That's why we did it. Yeah. Yeah, that's why we did it.

[Jessica]

Yes. So good. Oh my gosh. Really fun. Well, you guys, whatever your plans are for, for next week, I hope that it's a very merry one if you celebrate Christmas. And if you don't, I hope that you still get to enjoy all the hustle and bustle of your holiday, whatever is happening and however you celebrate. But I wanted to say really quickly, sue, because I was saying I want to watch your holiday. And you're like, I'll make a reel. I want to give you guys some of our Instagram accounts because I don't think we've ever done that before. And you guys probably think that as a company we're called Dear Alice or something and we're oddly not. Our store is on Instagram, is called alicelanehome. I guess everybody knows it starts with an AT sign So Alice Lane Home is our story. This is probably old news to a lot of you, but for those you that are new, we have a retail store in Salt Lake City, Utah area. And we also have a really great online store where we curate things that we can obviously ship really easily and get to you the stuff that Corey and I are creating. So you follow that at Alein Home if you want to see the store side of things, what we're creating, what launches we have. If you want to follow the interiors account or follow both, where we're designing the houses, remodeling the houses, Big, huge projects. Sue's leading the forefront on these. That is at Alison Home. Alice Lane Interiors on Instagram. Both accounts are really fun to follow, and they're both unique content every day of the week. So it's. It's a big lift to get it out there and share what we're doing. But those are really fun things. If you like Instagram, if you like TikTok, we're at Alice Lane Home on TikTok. And if you're a Pinterest person, we're Alice Lane Home on Pinterest. And then, as if that's not enough, I was gonna say you should follow Suzanne hall because you want to see this video come live.

[Suzanne]

Oh, yeah. I feel like I'll explain it. Okay. So my name, my last name is Hall. H A L, L. And when Instagram first, like, popped off, I was like, hala Hall. That's so funny. So it's H A L L A H A L L. Blur. That is my handle. Instagram stuck. Turned out it was a cool thing. And so did the name. I just kept Hala Hall. So that is my Instagram handle.

[Corey]

Perfect.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

And you'll get a bunch of reels.

[Jessica]

Totally. So fun. Yeah. And I'm Jessica, Underscore. Alice Lane. I think I also. I also was, like, having a hard time figuring out what to name myself at the time. And I was like, this is stupid. Nobody's gonna, you know, like, let's just come. And then. You don't feel like you can change. Yeah. I'm Jessica. Spelled the normal way, underscore. Can you change that?

[Suzanne]

Yeah, sure can.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Jessica]

The underscore gave me a space between Jessica and Alice Lane. So kind of lame.

[Suzanne]

Sometimes people are like, hey, you're Hala. Hal.

[Corey]

I got. Mine's just. Mine's just Corey Place. So I'm lucky in that way.

[Jessica]

Cory spelled C O R I, though.

[Corey]

Yeah. That's why I probably got it.

[Jessica]

Yeah. We thought we'd throw that in there for you insiders. You don't have to follow us individually, but you do for sure need to follow the store because it's so, so fun. And we really get in on the content making and show the behind the scenes and tell the story. So anyway, hopefully we'll see you there. And we are called Dear Alice because there's this old advice column. It's actually before our time that was called Dear Abby. And we just thought it was a nice ring to call it Dear Alice because so many of you write in, like today's episode and ask questions or say, can you do a podcast on this? And we answer your questions here. So we're kind of like Dear Abby, but we're Dear Alice.

[Corey]

It also is a little like tongue in cheek because everyone thinks Jess is Alice, which is not the case.

[Suzanne]

Yeah, we like to really confuse the people.

[Corey]

You just leaned into it now.

[Jessica]

Now nobody has to be confused because we just gave you all of that. So now you know the background, the store name, what we're doing. So hopefully you all feel like you're on the inside. We're glad that you're here. Okay, let's get into that listener question.

[Suzanne]

All right, so one of our great listeners, Sophie, sent in a question about doors, and we want to expand on them. So we have two parts to doors actually, like door. This episode is part one.

[Corey]

Yes, this episode is part one.

[Suzanne]

We're going to talk about interior doors. And here is Sophie's question. Says, what are the do's and don'ts of interior doors? And are single panel doors going out of style? What type of door style? Any paneling or trim is timeless. And does the door style all need to be the same? What a great question. So when we read this, we're like, this is a full podcast. We haven't done one on doors, interior or exterior. We may have brushed over it briefly, but it is like you go through a door to enter any space in your home. You go through the entry door and it has to say something about you. And also I feel like the door, along with like your casing, a lot of these other interior stuff that you're specifying, you know, kind of explains the architecture. Architecture in the shell of this house. So that being said, we're like, we need to go into doors because there's a lot to say. And for everyone's listening, convenience. Corey Place, he knows how to build custom doors.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Suzanne]

So there's no better person or a group of panel like people right now to really dissect this Corey place.

[Jessica]

Give them your background on doors.

[Corey]

So the job I had before Alice Lane, which was, I think I worked there for, like, eight or nine years. So I work. When I work for a company, I work there for a long time.

[Suzanne]

Loyalist.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yeah. I built custom doors for a company called CR Doors in Springville. And, yeah, I started in wood shop in high school. And then Springville Wood shop is, like, known in the entire state. Biasedly, I can say it's the best. And so the best students were always like, you know, like, people would come to the woodshop and be like, hey, who are your best students to, like, come and work? So that's how I got a job there. And, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Had a lot of, like, crazy times. Learned a ton. Built a million doors, so I don't know, about a million, but a lot close to yes. So learned a lot about them.

[Jessica]

You did your 10,000 hours?

[Corey]

I did, yes.

[Jessica]

So how fun is it that Sophia asks the question about doors and we're like, well, we just happen to have a resident door expert right here on the podcast.

[Corey]

We've been waiting five years for this day.

[Jessica]

It's finally here. That's great. Well, I think we should first get into the anatomy of the door because we're going to be talking a lot about the pieces and parts, and so we want to make sure you guys understand the language so that as we get through these things, you'll know what we're talking about. Now, this podcast is available also on YouTube. This is a very visual podcast, so we're going to do our best for those of you that don't want to watch it, that are driving in your car and might not want to go back and listen to it again to really describe the parts of the door. But if it is available to you to have this going on and be watching it, this is going to be a really good door school for you. Right now, if you're thinking about replacing your interior doors or even just a front door in your house, you're going to sound like an expert when you go in to talk to the craftsman about what you want and why you want it that way. Because Cory Place is going to teach you as well as sue and I are going to talk about the projects we've been doing and some of the things that we're loving and what we think makes for a really stylish door.

[Suzanne]

Turns out there's a lot of different doors.

[Jessica]

Yes.

[Suzanne]

Break that down for you today.

[Jessica]

Definitely. So let's start with the anatomy of a door. So sue hall has sketched a picture. Y'all know she's an artist. So I'm going to hold it up right now. And Corey, you will you take the people through the different types and. And describe for those that can't see it right now what we're talking about?

[Corey]

Yes. I'm the weakest at this on the podcast, describing what I'm visually seeing, so I'm going to do my best. So we're going to start with the slab itself. The slab is the door. When it's off of the hinges, it's just the.

[Jessica]

The entire door.

[Corey]

Yeah, the entire door. Not on the hinge. That's the slab.

[Jessica]

Okay.

[Corey]

So that's made of a bunch of components. The first are the ones that run vertical on the left and the right side of the door. Those are called stiles, S T I L E. And then the pieces that connect those styles together that run horizontally are called the rails. So you always have a top one, you always have a bottom one. Not possible to build a door without them. And then you'll have, you know, varying ones in the middle depending upon how many panels you have. So the panels are in between those rails.

[Suzanne]

The only exception would just be for a slab door, just a flat.

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is true. So that's technically depending upon how it's built, because I've built solid wood slabs. Those are just all styles, essentially, you know.

[Suzanne]

Got it. Okay, keep going.

[Corey]

So then Sue's sketch this for me. It's an exterior door. Obviously, we thought there's more parts to that, so we should get into it. But on either side of this door, there are sidelights or a transom. You know, you've seen those a million times on doors. They are the pieces in between those that are in between the slab itself. And the sidelights are called mole posts. So those are like kind of the door jam, but it's not considered a jam if it's an exterior door. And then you have like a brick mold or a casing that goes around it. Yeah. Glass is sometimes called glazing, too. And then at the. Obviously at the bottom, you have a threshold or a sweep. So it's pretty much like the basics of a door. And we can kind of like, you know, use this throughout the episode to kind of refer back to it.

[Jessica]

But, yeah, the threshold or the sweep really mucks things up for us ladies when we're trying to choose an interior door rug. But having an airtight door in the winter is really nice. So that it doesn't get breezy directing. So that's always something that we're fighting up against with an existing home or even a new build, because you don't. Is there a way to give ourselves an inch? Would you just say hold that? I don't even know. How do you give yourself away so.

[Corey]

That that sweep isn't as thick off the ground?

[Jessica]

Could you build the front of the house up a little bit higher or set the floor down an inch lower than normal? So when that sweep comes in. I don't know. Or is that going to trip people going out?

[Corey]

The problem is code.

[Jessica]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Corey]

I feel like code's probably always just getting in the way of what you guys, like, want to do. Yeah, it does with doors, like all the time.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

We gotta follow doors and stuff like that. So that's the issue with it. They do profile sweeps though, or thresholds.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

So if you want it to kind of just disappear as much. As much as you can use that. They're always like, you know, metal of some kind though. And I always just go for like the dark, really dark, like bronze one that kind of just goes away and. Yeah, that's what I prefer in use, but okay.

[Jessica]

So that is the anatomy of a door.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Jessica]

Let's get into the different types of doors and then like.

[Corey]

Yeah, we can talk about door styles and answer Sophia's question. Yeah. Should we go. Should we start with like, if her first part of the question. The single panel doors are going out of style.

[Jessica]

Yeah. So this is. We have some pictures of what we think are really beautiful single panel style doors or slabs or slabs. So let's define the two.

[Corey]

So a slab is just a smooth, like, has no shape to the door. Just completely smooth like this. So that would be a slab door.

[Jessica]

This would be like your mid century homes. Right. Or contemporary homes might do a slab door.

[Suzanne]

Yeah. Right. Our 1971 noted they're not high quality doors, but they just did a slab door probably for cost. Also, it's going to be your least expensive door style just to have like no profiles or paneling on it at all. And so that is a slab door. In this picture, we tried to find the prettiest examples of like what this door could be if this is your style on as far as the visuals on this podcast. So the picture that Jess is holding up right now is an interior, like double door, but it is a slab and it has really interesting hardware kind of separating it and it looks like it's almost plastered. So with a slab door I would say you see like a lot of wood grain slab doors. Just for interest. If you're not going to have a panel, you can't do a wood grain. You're shaking your head.

[Corey]

Yeah, I just feel like they're.

[Suzanne]

He hates them.

[Corey]

The wood grain is never good.

[Jessica]

Guess what? Sue hall has wood grain slab doors.

[Corey]

Yours are different. Yours are like from the 70s. Those are like, they're pretty bad. But yes, those aren't the ones that I thought of in my mind. I thought of like this one behind us right here where it's like, it's like wood. The wood tile version of a slab.

[Jessica]

We're thinking real wood.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Jessica]

Yeah, Yeah. A mid century home, right?

[Corey]

Yeah. That's cool.

[Jessica]

Maybe you're doing a remodel on it and you want to replace it with real solid wood.

[Corey]

In that case, I would do real wood.

[Jessica]

Or if you're on a slab door.

[Suzanne]

Cabin in Park City and you want it to feel like a cabin, you might temporary. You might do like a wood slab door with great hardware. And then I might paint out my trim white so it doesn't get too rustic. But still getting some of that warm tone. That's a great way to use a slab door.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

In my opinion. But the hardware, the hardware counts big time when you're dealing with such a simple profile as a slab door. And it really has to dictate the style that you are going for in that step. Has to kind of ring true throughout the house. To say, this is why I picked this door. It is simple for a reason and I went crazy on my hardware. It's really good.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

If you, if like someone like say has slab doors right now that are like awesome doors still, you know, you could put an applied molding on that to kind of like create like a, you know, detail or panel. I've done that with like cabinet doors a ton. Yeah, I've even, I've done it for, you know, entry doors as well.

[Jessica]

Corey, let me ask you a door question for this is the question I'm having. I don't know if the listeners are having the same question which as is it going to be more cost effective to buy slab doors and have your finish work, finish worker come in and do some sort of custom paneling on it? Or would it just be better just have the door shop just make the entire door that way?

[Corey]

Make the custom door. Yeah, yeah. Because the finished carpenter is most likely going to be more expensive than the hourly rate that you're paying for at the door shop.

[Jessica]

Yeah, yeah.

[Corey]

They don't make a ton of money, Trust me.

[Jessica]

Okay, great. Well, let's get into that single panel door. I'm. Those of you listening, I'm holding up a picture right now that shows those three different types of single panel doors.

[Corey]

So this one in the middle right here is kind of like what I was talking about. That's a slab door with an applied molding on the top of it to make it look like. Yeah.

[Jessica]

Is that done at the door shop or is that an aftermarket?

[Corey]

That's probably done at the door shop. Yeah.

[Jessica]

Okay.

[Suzanne]

We have done. I think that's pretty though, for. We had a client, Catherine, her doors where like we were trying to like keep as many things in the house and like her had more than one.

[Jessica]

She.

[Suzanne]

I think she had a two panel. But we applied it was just a shaker. And I will say that the shaker single panel door, it looks inexpensive because it is. It's less. It's a less expensive option. So I think if you can do. If like that's in your budget, you're building a stocked house, whatever, and that's the door that you select. Go in aftermarket and add a trim to the interior of those panels and that will make you look a lot more expensive.

[Corey]

100.

[Suzanne]

So whether you're a slab door or your pre panel door, that's a shaker. You can always embellish it to make it look more expensive.

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah. So a shaker is going to have a flat panel too. So there's no detail to it. There's no profile to it. Profiles. Detail is like the shape of the style of the style rail or panel. Um, so yeah, a shaker one. You just put that applied molding on the style and in the rail part and it kind of, you know, gives it a little bit more thickness and. Yeah, dimension. Yeah.

[Suzanne]

Some interest.

[Corey]

So. And then you want to still talk about these.

[Jessica]

Okay.

[Corey]

And then this one all the way to the right is a. That. That's a single panel door. That's when I hear that term. That's what's in my mind. It has a style on two styles, obviously, left and right, and then a top and bottom rail and then just a panel and one panel in the middle that runs, you know, the height of the door.

[Jessica]

And there is a profile to that one.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Jessica]

I think I have that door at my house. My house is a beach house. It's, I'd say transitional. And I still actually really like it.

[Suzanne]

It's beautiful.

[Corey]

To me, that's like. That's a classic door.

[Suzanne]

It is a classic door, but it's the molding. If it was just a shaker, it goes to a cheap door.

[Corey]

Exactly. Yeah. Because your style and rails, like all have a profile on them as well as your panel.

[Jessica]

You know what I like, Corey? I don't know if there's a way to talk about this intelligently, but I like it when the bottom rail is higher off the ground on the bottom than the equidistance all the way around. It sort of weights. It kind of like when you're custom framing a picture and you weight the bottom of the mat. I think that's so cool. Is there a way to ask for that or not really.

[Corey]

They always should be because that's. I mean back when doors were just, you know, mostly functional. That that's. That was the kick plate is the bottom rail.

[Jessica]

Yes.

[Corey]

That's how you'd open it.

[Jessica]

That's what I love. That's the reason I love me. I love me a kick plate. I love me some hardware on a door.

[Corey]

Yes, exactly.

[Jessica]

Yeah. Get all the jewelry on that girl.

[Corey]

So all of them should. There are sometimes, if I'm being completely honest, like, like in the door shop, we'd like build a door and be like, oh, you like this? This door instead of a six, eight, you know, like the, like everything else was. Was supposed to be like six, six. And so where are they cutting it off? They're cutting it off the bottom of the door. And then it. Then it doesn't look right with everything else.

[Suzanne]

When he says 6, 8. The standard. Like every standard average door that you walk through. Majority will interior door foot 8 inches on an interior door. Like we and I kind of average like just for dimensions. We do six, eight a lot. We do eight foot a lot when we get into custom. And then you kind of go 8, 10, 12, whatever.

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah. There's also 70 and 7 6. But those are like so 7ft and then 7 foot 6 inches. Those are like you can still find like non custom doors in those heights. It's just not those. Not as standard.

[Suzanne]

But I thought I'd say that out loud because yeah, sometimes we start saying like 3, 0, 6, 8. Anyway. Yeah, that's what that means.

[Corey]

Yeah. So a 3068 would be a door that's 3ft wide, 6 foot 8 inches tall.

[Suzanne]

Yeah. Now you can talk the lingo.

[Jessica]

And I want to say that it's pretty common to do a front door. A 3, 0.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

If you're doing a single door because you want you want a little bit broader on the front door because you're going to have to bring furniture.

[Corey]

I would say that's the most narrow. Yeah, you should go. Unless you're doing double doors, and that's.

[Suzanne]

By code, and you can't go smaller than 3.

[Jessica]

Zero.

[Corey]

Yep. So, yeah, unless you're like grandfathered in, I guess, like an old home that has historical.

[Suzanne]

It's not 30 inches. I'm talking 36 inches.

[Corey]

Because 3ft and then standard inside is 2, 8.

[Suzanne]

Yeah, you can be. Yeah.

[Jessica]

So, yeah. Okay, let's keep going. Let's talk about the double panel door.

[Suzanne]

We love doors.

[Corey]

Yes. So this is obviously just like, there's a couple situations here. The one in the middle again is an applied molding.

[Suzanne]

Guys, I love this. Let's. Let's describe this one in this. In the center, because you have two panels, but then you have like this like, center. What would you call this? Like, just. I know it's applied molding, but it feels very historic to have like this linear piece of molding that almost looks like a shelf detail or something that's just like giving some profile interest to break up the gap.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

Between the two panels.

[Corey]

Yes. So that's sitting on like the middle rail. And that would just be, you know, an applied shelf or an applied molding. Is how, like.

[Jessica]

And do you usually line that up with the hardware? Is that kind of how you find location on where that shelf.

[Corey]

Your hardware is typically centered like this. Your. The center hole is at 36 inches. Typically that's just like where your hand reaches for a door. And so that's typically where you want your middle rail. Just because it looks. It looks weird. Your middle rails down towards the bottom. Like you have a, you know, a two thirds panel. So your top panel is significantly bigger than your bottom. It's fine being at 36, but if it's like an inch off. It looks off. Yeah, it feels off.

[Suzanne]

There's really like these golden means just like to the weighted portion that you're talking about. You liked when we're looking at door elevations, when we're customizing them or like picking them, you like, naturally, your eyeballs naturally go to the one that feels the most balanced and that has the weighted bottom and it has like the hardware in the right spot. And like, that's a. So if you don't trust yourself, talk to somebody that you trust to look at the doors before you buy them.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Suzanne]

Or build them.

[Corey]

And if you do have a situation where your door is a little funky, whether like your Your original, like the one you're pulling out was, you know, weird, for some reason different from other ones in your house. I would say figure out a way to get, you know, talk to someone at a door shop to get that one matching every other one. Because there are ways to do it that aren't just like kind of fudging it. You know what I mean?

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Is there anything else you want to talk about on two panel doors or should we graduate to three panel doors?

[Suzanne]

I would say this is like two panels, like the most common that I see. Like. Yeah, a lot more. And then I think we'll talk about three panel.

[Corey]

Now back in the day was like two panel arch top, like that. So it had like that little arch on the top of it.

[Jessica]

Early 2000s, am I right? Yeah, we're not doing that. Also not doing that to our windows anymore.

[Corey]

Definitely.

[Jessica]

That was the window shape and the door shape.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

And I want to say the hallway shape had an arch top, so.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Right.

[Corey]

Or even like a breezeway into like a dining room or something that's like, I don't know.

[Suzanne]

And they're still available. I was like looking through stocked options. They're still around. You might be tempted by them. And we're here to say just clean it up.

[Jessica]

Just don't do it. Don't do it.

[Corey]

Someone at a door shop right now who knows very little about design is going to be like, this is our best seller and they're going to use it because it was selling the best in the early 2000s, you know, do.

[Jessica]

You know what other sin that they do at the arch top? They do this sort of beadboard looking thing inside the panel.

[Corey]

Oh, yeah.

[Jessica]

What's that called?

[Corey]

It's called a bead groove.

[Jessica]

Bead groove?

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

So ladies and gentlemen, do not do that. Yeah, yeah. Don't get, don't get playful with those doors because you're not going to like that in 10 years. And you don't want to replace all your interior doors. You're fine to paint things, you're fine to maybe even change up hardware, but you just don't want to be. Be changing out interior doors. So don't get too. Don't have too much fun.

[Corey]

So true.

[Jessica]

Yeah. Right?

[Corey]

Yep. Yeah.

[Jessica]

Okay, good.

[Suzanne]

All right.

[Jessica]

We said what not to do. Let's keep going. Okay. Three panel door, ladies and gentlemen. We are using these in our traditional homes. This is very classical. This looks like you're a billionaire.

[Suzanne]

Yeah. This is my favorite kind of door. I love a three panel. That like, little belt line between the center gives you so much opportunity to, like, leave it plain. Right, Again, right now we're looking at three panel additional pictures of three panel doors. And they are very traditional spaces. And, you know, you have. How would you break these up as far as, like, proportionately when you're, like, specifying something like this? Because these are all very similar to each other. Corey.

[Corey]

So basically, where you're taking the. How you're creating this middle panel is you're just taking some height out of that top panel and putting another rail there. So it's kind of giving you a third panel in between this top and bottom panel here. Because you. Your bottom panel is pretty much always going to stay the same because you need that 36 on center.

[Jessica]

So 36 on center for the doorknob.

[Corey]

For the doorknob, yes.

[Jessica]

Okay, Keep going. Sorry.

[Corey]

No, thank you. Thank you. So, yeah, like, this is one of my favorite doors. It just feels very classic to me as well.

[Jessica]

So this is a custom door, wouldn't you say?

[Corey]

Yes, but they do have. They do have stock versions of this. Yeah, yeah.

[Jessica]

Oh, great. Perfect.

[Corey]

So, yeah, that's.

[Suzanne]

Yeah, yeah, it's just. It's more molding. It feels just like quality finish work. And yeah, proportionately, it's. It's really, really nice. Again, we said this before, but those panels, like, the distance between them, again, those are the.

[Corey]

The rails.

[Suzanne]

The rails. Sorry. Those are the rails. And the. I think the closer that those can kiss, I think the better looking it is.

[Corey]

Yep. You want for your middle rails. You want smaller middle rails. Yeah, and kind of more panel. Gives you more detail, more dimension to the door.

[Jessica]

More panel, less rail.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Jessica]

I love that. Oh, you want to.

[Suzanne]

I just want to say one more thing that's like, generally with all the panel details, you'll find you'll see doors that have, like, two vertical panels on the top and two vertical panels on the bottom. We're just like, my eyeballs don't like them. I. I think we all would agree that we like. And I don't know what you would call that, like a split panel.

[Corey]

So. Yeah, like. Yeah, a split panel. Or there's like different styles. Like a. And six panel has those. It's technically a three. Three panel door that's split in half vertically. So those are called mullions. Those rails are called mullions because they're running vertical. Vertical. And yeah. Also not my fave.

[Suzanne]

So keep it going. Like, majority. Like that full width of the door is the panel that you want. Just that Solid thing. I will say that the multiple panel door. We were kind of on the panel door. We're just doing the 1, 2, 3. Talking to you today about those. But the multiple panel door, like the five panel door, is very historic. I feel lovely about that. I think that's a really cute look.

[Jessica]

Yeah. If you have a traditional historic home that you're fixing up. Also we have a project that's beloved called Tiger Oak. We use that five or six panel door for all their interior doors. And it spoke to the charm and sort of the look that we were going for to make this house feel like a. What's. What do they call that when it's like a generational home? Yeah. Yeah. It gives that feeling. It's not my favorite look, but I loved it so much for.

[Suzanne]

It's very.

[Jessica]

For Tigro. And I feel like designers out there. This is where I think our preferences need to stand out of the way and you need to do what's right for the house. It's still good looking. And so like I just said, I don't love this six panel door, but it's perfect for the project and you can appreciate its charm.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

But it still follows the rule of like, like keeping that same width consistent down, not doing the split in the designer.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

So that's why it's successful. Still in the right environment.

[Corey]

When you're figuring out your style of door, I would just take into consideration, like how tall your doors are gonna be. If you have eight foot ceilings, you're. You're. You have a six, eight door. That's what it's going to be.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

If you do a three. If you try to do a three panel where your top panel is. Is larger. Larger. And they're not like all equal sizes to each other, that's. It's going to look kind of weird because you have to shrink the top of that door. So in that case, like, I probably would do just a single panel, raised panel door. Cause then that's gonna elongate it anyway and it's not gonna be breaking up that door.

[Jessica]

Ladies, we get dressed every day. We wanna look long. This is the same thing for a door, right?

[Corey]

Exactly.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

No belt lines.

[Jessica]

Yes, definitely. Would it be helpful to show them? We just showed them a lot of beautiful custom doors. We're gonna show you the Disneyland FastPass. The shorthand. The shorthand vers. Get a ready made door from your door catalog to get these looks.

[Suzanne]

Yep. And this is a company. So the ones. The pictures that we just showed you were all like very custom doors. Beautiful. These are ones that, like, we use for every project that we do, you know, we have to select the doors. And so the front door often will be custom. If there's a specialty spot, those will be custom. But majority of the time, we're asking our builders. Okay, what catalog do you want me to, like, search through to find the right door, you know, for the rest of them? Because they get expensive. And the one that is, like, trusted, I think, like nationwide across the board, is called Trustyle is the one that we use the very most. Spell that and that's T R U S T I L E Trustyle. And they have a great catalog of panel doors, a few of which we have some pictures of right here. And I will say that this one, I. I love that. This one, again, we're looking at a door, and instead of having like that 36, what would you call this?

[Corey]

So this is a two panel. Yeah, it's a three quarter. Two panel. So the three quarter means that that top panel is about 75, three quarters of the height of that door.

[Jessica]

I love that.

[Suzanne]

I do, too. Yeah, I love this one.

[Jessica]

It gets your doorknob in the right space. It's weighting the top. It's not. It's like. I don't know, it's just more elegant. Yeah, yeah, it's.

[Corey]

Yeah, it kind of like, you know, brings a little bit more solidness to the bottom. Feels.

[Jessica]

Yes. So those of you that are not watching, this is from the True Style catalog. We just showed an illustration. This is a door that we are going to specify quite a bit.

[Corey]

On projects, they never have pretty names.

[Jessica]

No.

[Suzanne]

So this one is.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Well, that's not going to matter for. For most people listening, I would say if you are serious about replacing doors or choosing doors for your house, just watch this on YouTube. Those of you listening, we'll zoom through this catalog really quick. Just, we just wanted to highlight a few favorites. So that's our. That's our two panel. That's ready made. You can get that. This one is a three panel.

[Corey]

Kind of like what we were talking about earlier in the episode where that middle panel is just, you know, kind of. It's smaller, so it's splitting the difference like a belt. Yeah, this is really good.

[Suzanne]

We've used this a lot, and I believe this is the one that we used in Rachel Parcell's basement when you're.

[Corey]

So a couple of things, and it kind of ties into the question that we were asking past. In my opinion, a front door I think all your interior doors should be the same style.

[Suzanne]

Yeah.

[Corey]

The front door, it's. It is kind of weird to me when it's the exact same as the rest of the house. So I like having the front door being something you know, unique and kind of crazy. Yeah, yeah.

[Suzanne]

Something fun.

[Corey]

So when you're kind of like we were talking about code earlier. When you're looking through these doors, you're going to have or for interior or exterior, you're going to have to have like all of these ratings that you're talking about, the fire rating. So you, from your house to your garage, if you have a connected garage, you have to have a fire rated door there. In most places in Utah you do, it has to be at least 20 minute rated. Means there can be a fire on one side of the door. It's not going to get into the other side for 20 minutes. And they don't make every single style in every single rating. So when you're choosing your interior style and if you want to like that to match the door that's going out to your garage or even, you know, your front door to that, that you have to make sure, when you're doing that, you have to make sure that you'll have, you know, they have a fire rated version of it so that you can, you know, kind of keep that.

[Suzanne]

Hot tip.

[Jessica]

Yeah, yeah.

[Suzanne]

Super helpful.

[Jessica]

Like literally hot.

[Suzanne]

I know.

[Jessica]

Yeah. Okay, that's your three panel. Okay, what are we looking at here? Because I see three panels again, but different rhythm.

[Corey]

Yes, there's. Everyone's gonna call like that style of door something different. But that's just do that belt line at the top. Exactly. Yeah, so they would just. That would be a three panel small panel on top.

[Jessica]

Yeah, Symmetrical. Three panel. Three panel, small panel on the top and bottom. Big panel in the middle.

[Corey]

Exactly.

[Jessica]

Do you guys use this? I don't really care about this one.

[Corey]

Yeah, that's. That. That was not my favorite.

[Jessica]

Yeah, let's only, let's only show them our favorites. This is, I think very, very nice. Very standard. I think a lot of people feel good about this.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Right. Just a slightly offset rail. No. What do you call the middle rail?

[Corey]

Yeah, middle rail. Yeah. So where, where your panel's a little bit bigger again, that's like elongating the door. And that's exactly where your door knob will go is right in the middle of that. So that's at 36 on centers.

[Jessica]

That's great. And then we have your six panel which kind of feels like a historical pioneer House. Yeah. This is kind of like our tiger oak answer. And then this is a little more simple version of that. The four panel door also feels historic.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Yeah. Okay. So those are some really nice catalog, if you will, from your builder doors that you could specify. And like I said, watch that. You can see the numbers on the screen that coincide with that. As far as types of doors, we're now going to get to the jib door. This is. This is a slab door. This is something for you interior designers to employ. This trick. Like, it is a good one. It's really great. We've been leaning into this a lot lately.

[Corey]

I feel like this is where you could have one door that was different from all the rest.

[Jessica]

Oh, for sure.

[Suzanne]

You actually don't want to even, like, draw attention to it. And it's kind of just like the secret tunnels.

[Corey]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Jessica]

Secret door. You can wallpaper over the jib door. Will you just define what the jib door is for the. For the folks?

[Corey]

Yeah. A jib door is typically has drywall on it. It's it which is called gypsum, and they kind of make it just to kind of go away and into the wall.

[Jessica]

It's not cased. You even can run your floorboard across the face of it. So this door is literally hidden, and.

[Corey]

It'S at the same plane as your wall as. As your drywall. So kind of just the only thing you would see is the outline that it's there.

[Jessica]

Yeah. How do we use the jib door today, Sue? Why do we love it?

[Suzanne]

The reason why we love this is because, like, sometimes you have, like, a lot of entrances. Take, for example, we have our job that we did in Capitol, like the Capitol Heights job in D.C. oh, and Hue.

[Jessica]

Picture, cute picture.

[Suzanne]

Okay. And in that entry wasn't a massive entry, but they had a lot of doors. You have your entry door, you have closet doors. You have an entrance into the living room. And then you also had a powder room door. And we're adding all this paneling, and you're like, how are we going to work out the rhythm of our paneling all these doors and, like, tell people what is important and what is not important or what's. What's a fun secret. So as you go into that entry, you know, the powder room and the closet doors, it was just too much. And so we're like, let's hide that with a jib door and paneling on top of the jib door to help it go away so that it wasn't so many tall rectangles breaking up the space. That is why we did this. And it's really, really fun because, again, behind secret door number one is the Gucci green. Gucci herons, you know, panel or, like, wallpaper bathroom. And so this is a really great trick if you just don't want to draw attention to do yet another rectangle in the space and just soften it. And it's also really fun to just be like, come, come check this out, guys.

[Corey]

Exactly.

[Jessica]

Do you use a regular doorknob when you do a jib door? We have, yeah.

[Suzanne]

Or like, it's always not usually the same doorknob as everywhere else.

[Jessica]

Yeah, it's something special.

[Suzanne]

It's like a sweetheart of a thing. You know, it might be a little bit smaller just so you, like, have an interaction. You're just kind of peeking. You're like, oh, my gosh, there's a whole nother. I just.

[Jessica]

It's Narnia.

[Suzanne]

It's Narnia. Yeah.

[Corey]

I think it would look weird if there was just like, a round doorknob on the wall somewhere. Yeah. So it needs. It needs to be special, I think.

[Jessica]

Yeah. So this is that. This is that moment. And one thing that I'm sure the people are like, what do we call it? Jip door. Jib door. Because we were doing this just before the podcast, so we thought it was jip, like, short for gypsum, because that's what Sheetrock is. But oddly, when you look it up, it's spelling it J I B. Jib door. Do you. Why do we call it jib door or what did you call it? The door shop.

[Corey]

Yeah, we would call them just gyp doors because that's.

[Jessica]

Because we would like gyp.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Like short for gypsum.

[Corey]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jessica]

So. So designer, if you're going to specify this out there, or homeowner that wants to just get fun and do something like this, it's. You can call it either jip or jib J, I, B. And when you Google it, they both come up.

[Corey]

Yep.

[Jessica]

Okay, great. Okay. The next kind of detail or the next kind of doors are the glass detail doors. So these are doors that have glass glazing in them, like Corey talked about. And this is your French doors. Your. This is fun on a pantry. This is fun. I don't know, as a kitchen door, so you can see out. Also French doors leading into a music room or a home office or something like that.

[Suzanne]

This is. I love these kind of doors just for the transfer of light, you know, like, we can't get Enough windows in a house. We want the sunlight, we want all that natural lighting and shadows to happen. And so I love this and these are awesome. Especially if you start to look in toward the interior rooms of the house that don't have a window that you need to share some light with and like privacy might not be an issue or something like that. I think offices or things like that where you just need more window space. This is awesome to share light. So.

[Corey]

Yep.

[Jessica]

Yeah, that's great. So anything we want to say here, Corey? We're doing a three quarter door. We're doing a. Yeah.

[Corey]

So this one in the middle, that would be a 2/3 light. And what that means is like the glass in it is about 2/3 of the length, the height of the door. And then there's four different pieces of glass in there, four different, different pieces of glaze and they have grid or mullion separating them.

[Suzanne]

Okay. And I will say for each of these circumstances, because these are all projects of ours. On the three pictures that Jess is holding up, all these grids play into the windows that are around the rest of the house, you know, that are. If it's on an exterior wall, they're lining up with a grid somewhere else or close to that system. So anyway, don't just like say, oh, I'm just gonna do a four, a four light door in the middle of a highly gridded house because it might feel off. So you're gonna pay attention to your window grid.

[Corey]

Woods.

[Jessica]

Here's what I really like about this type of door. Because you can have an exterior door that is this three quarter, like this one in the middle. And sometimes they come from the vinyl door company and the mullions, is that what they're called in the middle? Those are inside the glass and they're like the same off white color as the windows.

[Corey]

That's a fake mullion.

[Jessica]

Yeah, I just, oh, I just want to lose my mind on that one. Because you have an opportunity to have your mullions be proud of the glass and really see those and be able to interact with them. And that looks really expensive and really charming.

[Corey]

The divider, the grid on the inside, that's how they like stream like bypassed custom and just like made that that's their like solution for it. Yeah, but yeah, because most of the time you're, you're gonna have to get somewhat of a custom door to do this. They make some readily like available options. Sometimes they're just gridded out inside of the glass and that. Yeah, that's A bumski.

[Jessica]

It is a bumsky.

[Suzanne]

But tell me, Corey, like, on these doors, that's one solid piece of glass. And then the grid is for neb. It's four pieces of glass.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

Okay. Cows make light. And each of those things, like, there's a lot of grids. Each of them are like the old antique wavy glass. So I remember her, like, popping those out when there would be a crack and having to replace them. And I'm like, I wonder if there's a more streamlined way. So that's really good to know.

[Jessica]

That's the best way, what your mom has.

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah. Like, these doors right here to. All the way to. I guess that's my right, but our left. Yeah. All of those are, like, individual pieces of glass. So when you're, like, putting them in, you have to, like, line those, like, all that grid up that's running vertically. Line all that up. So it's not doing this, you know, not, like, wavy down the door.

[Suzanne]

So grab your window and door guys some donuts tomorrow.

[Corey]

Definitely.

[Suzanne]

It's a lot of work.

[Jessica]

Corey, will you tell them the difference between this door, which is Rachel Parcel's pantry door, versus this door? Going outside is tiger oak.

[Corey]

Yeah. So Rachel Parcell's is. Is more of a. It's closer to a half light. Six light is what you would say. So there's six pieces of glass. It has an applied molding on the top of it around the styles and rails, and then has a panel detail. The one in Tigray looks like that's like, a flat panel. Is that true?

[Suzanne]

No, I think it's a recessed, like, bottom panel.

[Corey]

Oh, okay.

[Suzanne]

With the trim.

[Jessica]

So one's three fourths, one. Seven. Eight. Eight. No, one's half.

[Corey]

One's two thirds. One's half. Yeah, yeah. So essentially, like, a half light is like, you're taking the top panel out, and you're replacing that with glass. And then if it were a one light, it would just be one piece of glass or two light. Three light, six light. Yeah.

[Suzanne]

Got it. Okay.

[Jessica]

So cool. Yeah. Should we talk about transoms?

[Suzanne]

Yeah, let's talk about transoms.

[Jessica]

Okay, great. So the transom. Corey, do you want to define the transom for folks?

[Corey]

A transom is glazing, so glass above or sometimes next to a door.

[Jessica]

So, like, you would call the sidelight also transoms in the door shop. Or would you call it a side light?

[Corey]

If it was interior, I'd call it. It's a transom exterior.

[Jessica]

Oh, fascinating.

[Corey]

And if there's a mole post in between it, then it's a sidelight.

[Jessica]

It gets really complicated and convoluted.

[Corey]

But a door guy's. If you're talking to him like that, he's gonna know what. What you mean.

[Jessica]

I always thought that the transom was overhead and the side lights were to the right or left of the door set. So that's good to know that it's a difference between a mole post and if it's interior or exterior. Okay, great. Designers and design enthusiasts, we're going to sound so smart. Yes. I hope that you're still hanging on there with us. I know this is a lot of education. Okay, so here is the.

[Corey]

Yeah. So we have a couple options. These ones, the first two, the one on the right and the middle are interior, obviously. So I would. Yeah. Are these doors like, bifold doors?

[Suzanne]

Yeah, that looks like a bifold unit. Yeah. That's on an interior space. It's probably just sharing light from a hallway to a room.

[Corey]

Yeah. So the middle one, bifold doors, transom on top. The one on the right is a double door with two transom on the side and a transom above. And then this exterior door on the left has a transom above it. So, guys.

[Suzanne]

And you can get so fun. I just wanted to, like, put some of these more theatrical options in there. Just because you can do leaded glass, you can do, like, little jewels and things. Oh, case in point. Thank you. Jessica Bennett. Next on the queue is at our Manchester in the Kitchen. Manchester house on our portfolio. This is in the kitchen and around. She has, like, a big hood feature in her kitchen on this wall that's clad in marble. And then she has a couple steps up on both sides of that that go to a playroom behind the kitchen. How cute is that? Also grandma and grandkids. Anyway, and we wanted to do something really fun, so we did these transoms above those doors. And she's colorful. She has a lot of, like, British ties. And so we did these stained glass coloreds with the leaded glass transoms up there. And we did a lot of transoms in her, like, whole house. Just because she loves light coming into those interior spaces.

[Corey]

Transoms in an interior of a home were originally used to, like, control heat between. Between rooms. Because you would open those transoms up.

[Jessica]

Yeah. Kind of like our shower.

[Corey]

Exactly.

[Jessica]

I have. I have a transom tilt above my shed. Glass door. Yeah. So just only for. Look, I. I don't move it, but I just think it's so beautiful to elongate. Again, that line.

[Corey]

I think that's most of like the interesting interior details of our home are like, used to be function and now it's like let's. Yeah, let's like pay homage to it.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Corey]

But yeah, yeah, I love that cool detail about that.

[Jessica]

Yeah. So work transoms into your design if you want to give it some, I'd say charm and a little bit of history.

[Corey]

Definitely.

[Jessica]

Yeah, I love that. Let's really quickly talk about door trim because I think the way we case our doors really, really matters and sort of helps set these off. So just really quickly. Maybe Corey, you could help us on this. But our baseboard is usually related to the casing.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Jessica]

Yeah, yeah. Like, I know I had custom baseboards ripped. I had a knife made and we just ripped all the baseboards. But then we cut off a bottom portion of it and then use the rest for the casing if you're doing a custom job. But I think that. I think it's worth getting the custom knife made. I really am happy that I did it. So I have something that's unique to anything in a catalog. But talk a little bit about case and basically base on a door.

[Corey]

Yeah. My personal feeling as far as casing goes, I don't like a header, especially if it's just a single header. There's like nothing above it. So I always like to do a mitered casing which is just 45 degree angles that just kind of outline your door.

[Suzanne]

Essentially your typical width on that casing is usually for standard homes, around like the four or a half inch casing that wraps around that door. And again, it's just bordering the whole thing like a frame and then mitering in the corners. Correct?

[Corey]

Yes.

[Jessica]

And then on something like that, your base average would be like six inches, would you say? Or the higher the better.

[Corey]

Yeah. So they have like three, five and seven series. So it's within three to four inches and then five to six, and then seven to eight, eight and a half. And then you can even get taller than you can stack them.

[Jessica]

Yeah, you can get real crazy.

[Corey]

I would say at just be in the seven series for your base and. And then you know, the casing size is typically the 3 Series for your. For your casing.

[Suzanne]

And it's the same casing on the doors and the windows.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Suzanne]

Same case.

[Corey]

Yes. And then whatever the profile number is, again, they're not sexy names. They're like, you know, profile 972 or whatever that'll have a base version of that, which is five or seven series, and then the three and you want those to just match.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

And pick your baseboard first. Figure out what the baseboards are going to be.

[Jessica]

Pro tips.

[Suzanne]

Then pick your casing for that.

[Jessica]

Yes.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Jessica]

Yeah, that's great. You will want a pediment, if you will, on the top. I think at your front door, you want to sort of build up a little bit of vibrato and. Or if you are a classical or traditional home, you're going to want to do that there. I know on traditional new builds today you're not doing that, but if you're going for a certain style, I think it's really fun.

[Suzanne]

At a historic home and you're remodeling and just, like, pay attention to what was happening. And then, like, I don't know if that's important to you. Definitely, like, pay homage to that and.

[Jessica]

Go ahead and get the very best finish worker. There's gonn good, better, best. On a job site, you're going to want your best. If you're going to be doing pediments and especially for important, really get into the history of it with them, and you'll get yourself a little bit of an education. I love the finished work part. It's kind of the icing on the cake.

[Corey]

Oh, definitely.

[Jessica]

And I feel like the job site finally starts to feel like a home. When you start to see the case in the base and those moldings go on, you're just like, oh, and the house smells like sawdust, and it's just kind of dreamy. I love it.

[Suzanne]

And if you ever. If you're getting into the. The custom land and you ever have questions, it is not out of the norm to ask your finish worker for, like, if you want to see paneling on the walls, to have them sample that for you. And that's really.

[Jessica]

Mock it up.

[Suzanne]

Mock it up. Have them mock up your door to make sure you like the proportions and the trims and the profiles integrated, because, yeah, just make it right.

[Jessica]

They'll stack a couple pieces of molding and they'll use just some quick nails to. To mock it up and be excited.

[Suzanne]

About it going in about the picture. Have the picture of the door that you love and just be like, nope, nope, nope. I want to look like this.

[Corey]

And then you'll be able to tell if it's off. Like, you may not be able to, oh, you didn't do this exactly right. But you'll know if it's not exactly what you're gonna be like. Something feels off. What. You know what is feeling off about this?

[Suzanne]

If you don't have a great finish worker, then they might take shortcuts. So just make sure that you hold them to what, the image that you've dreamed about forever.

[Corey]

So, yeah, definitely.

[Jessica]

Really quick. Let's get into a few do's and don'ts, and then we'll turn you guys loose. Don'ts for doors, I should say. Well, let's give them a few don'ts. Um, I would say never, ever, ever. Let's play. One second.

[Suzanne]

Would you ever.

[Corey]

Yeah, Would you ever.

[Jessica]

Suzanne, would you ever do one side light with your front door? Never. I've seen that on so many. On so many, like, older homes, maybe from the 80s or 90s where they have one sidelight.

[Corey]

I built them in the early 2000s. Sure did.

[Jessica]

Oh, you did?

[Suzanne]

Like, it's not that.

[Jessica]

Yeah. You guys fight with your builder if that is on plan, or your architect. But don't do the sidelight at all if you have to. You could do a front door that. That has some glass in it. That's a half light or something. If you want to get light, get it above transom. If you have the room, get it above transom.

[Corey]

Do a wider. I would. I would go for a wider door. So like a 36 with a transom above.

[Suzanne]

Cheers. Or good casing happening around on the interior next year.

[Jessica]

Good, good. You guys won that round. Okay. Okay. Would you ever paint your interior doors, whatever a color?

[Suzanne]

I would, but, like, I'm the anomaly. Like, so I'm gonna. I might lose this round. In general, for the majority of our clients, if you're not trying to draw attention. If you go on Pinterest and you're looking at doors, there's rarely. They're trying to draw attention to your interior doors because there's so many of them, and so it can get cacophonous. So we are usually, like, 99 of the time, we are going to be painting the door the same color as the casing, same sheen. Whatever's happening on the. If we do a color drench on that room, that color is going to be the same color as the casing is going to be in that room. But on the public face, like, if that's white trim, the doors are going to be white. So that is, like, the rule. I will say it's the general rule.

[Jessica]

Yeah.

[Suzanne]

If you're crazy and you want to highlight a door, then go for it. There's so many fun doors and so many cool opportunities, but make sure that the door, like, your personality merits it or that the door is like Leading somewhere special and you want to draw attention to it. That's that job.

[Jessica]

Yes. Very good. Love that. You win. Okay. Would you ever do a hollow corridor door? Dreamed about it my whole life.

[Suzanne]

Corey, what is a hollow corridor?

[Corey]

Define for me a hollow corridor is literally just made out of thin pieces of MDF and there's cardboard that's kind of like shaping it on the inside. That's what hollow corridor is. I have them in my house. Let's go over pricing just really quick. You can get a interior door that is like board routed, framed, so like has jam on it for probably $200. Hollow core. You're probably 2 to 3x that for solid. A solid.

[Suzanne]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Let's tell them when you want to make sure and do a solid door in the home. If you're going to spring for it somewhere.

[Corey]

Hold on. Where you.

[Suzanne]

It could be like what you can afford when you.

[Jessica]

Cory, here's what I want to say. I grew up with four little brothers. When boys go to the bathroom and they don't sit down, it's just a loud. I feel like privacy is needed, especially in the case of a powder bath. What are we gonna do on the powder bath door? Maybe the primary suite door. Rooms that you want privacy. Maybe a home office door where you're gonna be on the phone talking. You're an attorney, you're gonna be talking about private information.

[Corey]

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Do a solid, solid door. Also, people don't. Builders now don't insulate the walls of the interior walls of homes. I insulated around all of my bathrooms just because that's people.

[Suzanne]

People deserve privacy.

[Corey]

That's the hollow wall. You know what I mean?

[Jessica]

Yeah, Hollow wall.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yeah, Good point. So I would say, yes, both of those. The people coming to your house and using the restroom deserve their privacy.

[Jessica]

I agree. I think that's very classy, actually.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Okay.

[Corey]

A holo corridor is essentially. It's like glorified paper. It. It. It really is.

[Jessica]

So if you're living in a home right now and you. You wish there was more privacy, you might just need to update the door.

[Corey]

Yep.

[Jessica]

Y.

[Suzanne]

Do a couple of them at a time. If that's all you can afford, make those ones important and then do the rest.

[Jessica]

Yeah, yeah. Do the main floor.

[Suzanne]

Yeah.

[Jessica]

Let those wild kids in the basement live with the hollow corridors.

[Suzanne]

I will say that those hollow core doors, like with hardware and rough children. The hardware detaches from the hollow core door and there's splinters. I will say that because I really rough boys and they like slam and they pull and they yank and they ding like walls. And I swear they're good kids, but they're just boys. Anyway, the hollow core. I cannot wait to replace them with solid core because right now everything looks terrible because of the damn hollow corridor. Yeah, like, the hardware looks bad. Like everything just like is like a glory for no one. Absolute.

[Jessica]

The worst.

[Suzanne]

You heard it here, don't.

[Jessica]

Okay, last one. Would you ever do a barn door as an interior door today in the year almost 2025?

[Corey]

No, no, no. Yeah, that ship sailed long ago, in my opinion.

[Suzanne]

Long time ago. We did one. Cool. I'm not even call it a barn door. I'm going to call it like an Architectural Digest moment with like. And it was an art piece from. And it really was an issue of a door swing two because we didn't want an interior door swing into the bathroom and I didn't want to enter the bedroom. And so we did a very, very slick rail where you cannot see, like wheels running on the track.

[Corey]

That's my biggest issue is the hardware thing.

[Suzanne]

I'm just.

[Jessica]

I've got a visual for that.

[Corey]

It's almost like. It's almost like a. A pocket door. But that's not. It's not inside of the wall.

[Suzanne]

Unless you're farming and you pulled something from the farm to put it up on a barn door. You don't deserve a barn door and none of us should. But this was a really slick, beautiful rail. And this was an art piece of like all these antique books that were shellac onto this thing. And that is how we made this circumstance.

[Jessica]

And you don't even look at it and think barn door. You just think art installation on a rail.

[Suzanne]

Installation on a rail. Yeah, it's like, it's.

[Jessica]

Yeah, yeah, that's great.

[Suzanne]

This is. I give you.

[Jessica]

This is the exception to the rule to that. Yeah.

[Suzanne]

But other than that.

[Jessica]

No, you guys, you have made it through interior All About Doors certificate or something. All About Doors Part one. Yes, you get a certificate. And then when you. When you pass Doors Part two, you are going to graduate from door school with Corey Place and then join us.

[Suzanne]

To doors part 3.2.0. Yes, exactly.

[Jessica]

Yes, exactly. But first I wanted to thank you guys for writing in just like Sophia did today. If you guys have any episode ideas, we want to hear them so you can email us at dear alice alicelanehome.com and we want to remind everyone we have a free design service available to help you find new furniture. If you're furnishing your home we're going to get you the perfect rug at the perfect size, curate perfect art pieces for that room. You can reach out to help to our [e-mail] and visit our Design Services tab. Sue, Corey, would you add anything to that about the home furnishing design?

[Corey]

No.

[Jessica]

Service? No.

[Suzanne]

I think it's really. If you are looking for furniture and you need to phone a friend, this is a really great thing because it's the worst to get a piece of furniture that you're like, that looks awesome in the store and you get it in your house and it doesn't fit, you know, or the rug's too small and you're like, gosh dang it, why I wish I had someone. This is like, this is why the program was made so that like you could be confident in your decisions, you know, on these really big investment pieces.

[Jessica]

Totally. Also, you know, what's been really popular is there's so many rooms that don't have a standard size rug that fits it. We custom make a lot of the rugs that we design in any size and we can choose any palm. So if you have a weird shape room and you need like a 10x10 or something that's not programmed, these guys are constantly making custom rugs for folks and we can help solve that issue too. So really great. Whatever you need, they can help you there on standby. Use the program. It's awesome. Thanks for listening to Dear Alice. We will catch you next time. Hey, thanks for listening. If you like our show, please leave a five star rating.