THE ESTATE MILLWORK REFERENCE — INTERIOR DOORS
Custom Solid Wood Interior Doors
Estate Millwork builds solid wood interior doors to the exact opening — passage, closet, bathroom, pantry, pocket and sliding barn doors, as slabs or prehung in a jamb. Width and height are entered to the sixteenth of an inch, so an old 31 7/8" x 79 1/2" opening gets a door built to that size instead of a stock 32" x 80" door and a pile of shims. Every door is cut, joined and sanded to order in our Meyersdale, Pennsylvania mill and shipped factory direct.
Solid wood, not hollow core
Home-center interior doors are usually hollow core, or a veneer glued over an MDF core, in a handful of stock sizes. Ours are solid hardwood throughout: rails and stiles cut from full-length lumber, true mortise-and-tenon joints pinned with a hidden dowel plug, and panels that float in their grooves so the wood can move with the seasons without splitting the frame. No finger-jointed stiles, no veneer over MDF, no dowel-only joints. The result is the heft, the quiet close and the solid sound that a hollow-core door never has.
Thickness: 1 3/8" or 1 3/4"
1 3/8" is the standard for interior passage and closet doors and matches most existing hinges and hardware bores. Step up to 1 3/4" for tall or wide interior doors, doors between a bedroom or office and a busy living space, and anywhere you want a heavier, more sound-damping door.
Slab or prehung, and the jamb that goes with it
Order a slab by finished door size when you are replacing a door in an existing frame, or order by rough opening and we supply the jamb. Jamb options are Standard for a single swing, DoubleHung for a pair (each leaf half the opening width), Pocket for a door that slides into the wall, plus Spanish, Modern and Arch profiles. Standard jamb depth is 4 9/16" for a 2x4 wall; specify 6 9/16" for a 2x6 wall. Casing can be applied to the front, the back, both faces, or left off.
Paint grade or stain grade
For painted interior doors, poplar is the workhorse: a true hardwood with a tight, even grain that takes paint without telegraphing, and our most affordable solid wood door. For stained interior doors, red and white oak, walnut, cherry, maple and knotty alder cover the range from formal to rustic. Doors ship unfinished, clear coated, or factory painted — Prime White, Extra White, Dover White, Tricorn Black and more, or any custom color you name.
Choosing a style room by room
Raised panel doors suit traditional and formal rooms; flat panel (Shaker) doors suit transitional and modern interiors. Louvered doors let closets, pantries and laundry rooms breathe. French doors with glass lites carry light between rooms, pocket doors save floor space in tight halls and baths, and sliding barn doors close wide openings without a swing. Because every door is made to order, you can carry one panel layout and rail width through the whole house, sized to each opening.
Typical build time is about four weeks, and every door is inspected and crated before it ships. If you have an odd opening, a historic door to match or a drawing, send it over or call 412-641-0177 — a person who works in the mill will answer.
Wooden Doors Fabricated from Premium Lumber Grades
Stain Grade Lumber
For our louvered door products ordered in stain grade, we use FAS clear hardwood grades for both domestic and imported lumber. For projects requiring environmentally sensitive grades, we also offer FSC certification when required. We procure all of our lumber electronically, and order only the FAS clear grades. Additionally, we pre-select and inspect each shipment of lumber, and moisture check to insure that it meets our 8% standard. And as part of our routine quality process, each board from a unit of lumber is inspected as part of our quality louvered door manufacturing process.
Paint Grade Lumber
Even our economical paint grade louvered doors are manufactured from FAS grade lumber. The FAS specification controls the type of defects that are permitted, including knots, which we exclude from our paint grade products. However, features that would be considered defects in stain grade products -- color streaks, mineral discoloration etc, are not pertinent in paint grade. Typically, we use Poplar and occasionally Oak and Soft Maple for our paint grade products.
Color and Grain Matching
For high end louvered doors, we can offer a pre-selection service whereby all of the lumber required for the entire louvered door job is picked, inspected, and designated to be assembled as a unit at one time, which often results in boards from the same tree ending up in the same door for maximum consistency. When specified we can also book match raised panels and flat panels when used in our louvered doors.
Milling and Sawing Specifications
For our highly discriminating louvered door customers, we can offer our various hardwood species to be sawn in certain way, to emphasize a desirable feature of the wood. If required, the door material can be specified as flat-sawn, quarter-sawn, rift-sawn or ribbon sawn. Talk with your Estate Millwork louvered door specialist to inquire about adding these specifications to your order.
Top Quality and Elegant Custom Wood Doors
Estate Millwork creates each custom wood door from your detailed specifications. We use premium materials, state of the art equipment, and an experienced, quality oriented staff to produce our doors. We follow each of the steps below to produce the finest wooden doors on the market.
Hand Selection and Inspection of Materials
Our lumber procurement process is computer driven so that we are sure to be getting the best possible price on the highest quality materials. Once your order is "green-lighted" for production in our plant, the lumber demand is compared to our shop inventory and automatic replenishment orders are placed if necessary. When production begins on each custom door, the material is hand selected and the best of our high quality stock is used for the solid stiles of the doors. Louvers and rails are generally selected from the same lot of material to afford the best match, within the natural variation of hardwoods.
Precision Ripping of Rails and Stiles
We minimize the costs of our high quality products by maximizing the yield on the rough lumber. Once the lumber of the appropriate thickness has been selected, it is passed through our ripping department where a specialized gang rip saw is used to get the maximum yield from each board. Our operators are trained to reject defective materials either during the selection process or during the sawing process, as some defects are latent and are not visible until the board is "opened up".
Hand Jointing of All Door Components
The next step is to hand joint each rough sawn board to get a true flat edge, and to relieve any internal stress in the solid wood. This is a step that is skipped by many modern door manufactures, but one that we believe is so important that we honor the tradition. Our most skilled craftsmen in the plant are responsible for this function which requires judgement, precision and experience. Lower quality door manufacturers skip this step, or use particle cores and veneers to fake the look of a real door. But by hand jointing each board, we insure that every other step in the process is operating on a flat, smooth board, and that the door will remain stable for its lifetime.
Handcrafted with Sustainably Harvested Lumber
At Estate Millwork, we employ a meticulous process to ensure the quality and sustainability of our lumber. Our commitment begins with the careful air drying of much of our lumber, followed by further refinement in low wattage dehumidification kilns to achieve optimal moisture levels.
Every single piece of wood we acquire undergoes thorough utilization in our production processes. Leveraging advanced automated saws and optimization software, we achieve an exceptional yield ratio of 94 percent. This means that nearly all of the wood we purchase is transformed into usable products. The small remainder, comprising mainly sawdust and chips, is utilized efficiently: either utilized as fuel to power our operations, or repurposed by providing bedding and contributing to composting for local cattle farmers.
Our dedication to minimizing waste extends to the sourcing of our materials. A significant portion of the lumber we use hails from Amish farmers within our county. These farmers adhere to traditional practices, utilizing horses for harvesting and operating vintage 1920s sawmills. Such methods not only contribute to the preservation of heritage techniques but also entail lower environmental impact compared to modern industrial approaches.
Furthermore, our commitment to sustainability is evident in the sourcing of our imported lumber. We exclusively procure lumber from plantation-grown sources, thereby ensuring that our operations do not contribute to deforestation or the depletion of natural forests. By prioritizing responsible sourcing and efficient utilization, Estate Millwork strives to uphold environmental stewardship while delivering exceptional craftsmanship.
A Complete Guide to Choosing Custom Wood Doors
Whether you are selecting a front entry door that makes a grand first impression, interior doors that define your living spaces, or specialty doors like French doors or barn doors, understanding your options helps you make the best choice for your home and budget.
Types of Custom Wood Doors
Louvered doors feature angled slats that allow airflow and ventilation, making them ideal for closets, laundry rooms, pantries, and tropical-style interiors. Raised panel doors have solid panels with a beveled profile, offering a traditional and formal look appropriate for Colonial, Georgian, and Traditional interiors. Flat panel doors provide a clean, contemporary appearance well suited to Shaker, Craftsman, and Modern design styles. French doors feature glass panes framed by wood muntins, bringing natural light between rooms or connecting indoor and outdoor spaces. Barn doors slide on a surface-mounted track system, saving the swing clearance of a traditional door and adding a distinctive design element.
Selecting the Best Wood for Your Doors
The wood species you choose determines the color, grain pattern, and character of your finished door. Mahogany is the classic choice for entry doors, prized for its rich reddish-brown color, excellent stability, and natural resistance to moisture. Cherry delivers a warm, elegant tone that deepens with age, making it a favorite for fine interior doors. Maple offers a light, uniform grain that takes stain evenly and works well in Contemporary and Transitional settings. White Oak and Red Oak provide strong grain character and excellent durability. For paint-grade doors, Poplar is the most economical solid hardwood option, with a smooth surface that produces a flawless painted finish. Knotty Alder offers a rustic look with distinctive knot patterns popular in Southwestern and Rustic decor.
How to Measure for Custom Doors
Measure the width and height of the existing door slab, or the rough opening if you are framing new. For replacement doors, measure the slab itself, not the frame. Standard interior door widths are 24, 28, 30, 32, and 36 inches, but custom doors can be built to any dimension. Standard heights are 80 inches for interior doors and 80 or 96 inches for entry doors. Measure at three points across the width and three points for the height, and use the smallest measurement. For our louvered doors and raised panel doors, we build to your exact specification to the nearest sixteenth of an inch.
Door Construction and Quality
The quality of a wood door is determined by its construction method. Our doors use traditional rail and stile construction with solid hardwood components joined by mortise and tenon joinery. This is the same construction method used by master craftsmen for centuries because it produces the strongest, most durable frame. Each joint uses a half-inch by one and seven-eighths inch tenon secured with a hardwood dowel and waterproof adhesive. Lower-quality doors use dowel joints, biscuit joints, or finger-jointed lumber that will fail over time. Solid Cherry construction ensures your door will perform for decades.
Finishing and Installation Considerations
We offer unfinished, primed, painted, and stained finish options. Exterior doors require a finish rated for UV and weather exposure, with the top and bottom edges sealed to prevent moisture wicking. Interior doors can use any interior-grade finish. For painted doors, our factory priming provides an excellent foundation. For stained doors, we recommend discussing your color preference with our specialists so we can select material with complementary grain character. When ordering a pre-hung door, specify the hinge side and swing direction. For barn doors, measure the wall space beside the opening to ensure adequate clearance for the door to slide fully open.
Custom Doors vs. Home Center Alternatives
Mass-produced doors from home improvement stores are typically hollow-core or use engineered cores with veneer faces. They come in standard sizes and limited styles. A custom solid wood door from Estate Millwork is built to your exact dimensions, from the wood species you choose, in the style you want. Every component is solid hardwood, assembled with time-tested joinery. The visual difference between a solid Cherry door and a hollow-core veneer door is immediately apparent. Solid wood doors also offer superior sound insulation, thermal performance, and a substantial feel that cannot be replicated by lightweight alternatives.
Why Choose Cherry?
American Cherry is prized for its warm reddish tone that deepens and enriches naturally with age and light exposure. A Cherry door installed today will develop a richer, deeper patina over the coming years, becoming more beautiful as it ages — a quality that no stain or finish can replicate. Cherry's fine, closed grain produces surfaces of exceptional smoothness, and it machines to precise, crisp profiles. It is the classic choice for fine interior doors in formal living spaces, libraries, studies, and master suites. A Cherry door conveys warmth, elegance, and an appreciation for natural materials that ages gracefully rather than deteriorating.
Explore Related Products
Browse Interior Doors by Wood Species
CherryCypressKnotty AlderMahoganyMaplePoplarRed OakSapeleSpanish CedarTeakWalnutWhite OakW. Red CedarAZEK Frequently Asked Questions
Are your interior doors solid wood?
Yes. Every Estate Millwork interior door is solid hardwood throughout, with rails and stiles cut from full-length lumber and true mortise-and-tenon joinery pinned with a hidden dowel plug. There is no hollow core, no MDF core and no finger-jointed stile.
What thickness should an interior door be?
1 3/8 inch is the standard for interior passage and closet doors and fits most existing hinges and hardware. Choose 1 3/4 inch for tall or wide interior doors or where you want a heavier, more sound-damping door.
Can you build an interior door to a non-standard size?
Yes. Width and height are entered to the sixteenth of an inch, so the door is built to your opening rather than trimmed down from a stock 32 by 80 inch door.
Do you sell prehung interior doors?
Yes. Order by rough opening and choose a jamb: Standard for a single door, DoubleHung for a pair, Pocket for a pocket door, or Spanish, Modern and Arch profiles. Jamb depth is 4 9/16 inch for a 2x4 wall and 6 9/16 inch for a 2x6 wall, with casing on either face, both, or none.
What is the best wood for a painted interior door?
Poplar. It is a true hardwood with a tight, even grain that takes paint smoothly, and it is our most affordable solid wood door. For stained doors, oak, walnut, cherry, maple and knotty alder are the most popular choices.
How long does a custom interior door take?
Typical build time is about four weeks. Every door is inspected individually and crated before it ships factory direct from our Pennsylvania mill.
| | |
|---|
| Material | | Cherry | Premium FAS Clear Grade | Rot Resistant, Insect Resistant Premium Exterior Lumber |
| Joinery | | 3/4" X 3" | True Mortise & Tenon, | Strongest solid wooden joint |
| Frame Thickness | | 1 3/4 " | Solid Wood | Rigid Integrity |
| Stile Width | | 5 " | Hand Jointed | Vertical Stability |
| Base Rail | | 10 " | Balance | Architecturally Correct |
| Crown Rail | | 5 " | Balance | Historically Accurate |
| Flat Panels | | .75 " Thick | Spline Jointed, Grain Reversed | 2 X the glue surface and strength |
| Finish | | Machine Sand 120, Hand Sanded 150 | Drum,Edge & Palm sanded | Top quality hand finish |
| Packing | | Foam Wrapped in Custom Built Carton | 1/8" Foam, 3/16 Trim Sheet 100lb | Protection against damage in transit. |
| Quantity | Description | Dimensions | Material |
|---|
| 2 | Stile | 1 3/4" X 5 " X 80 " | Cherry |
| 1 | Rail | 1 3/4" X 10 " X 26 " | Cherry |
| 2 | Rail | 1 3/4" X 5 " X 26 " | Cherry |
| 2 | FlatPanel | 3/4" X 22 3/4 " X 30 3/4 " | Cherry |
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