Custom Doors for Custom Homes

Custom doors make sense when you're building a custom house, and then you might wonder how many types of custom doors there are? When searching for an answer to this question, I didn't find any definitions for custom doors, e.g. Wikipedia has the history of doors, types of opening mechanisms, how doors are constructed … but nothing about custom doors!

On Pinterest there are lots of door manufacturers sharing their products, and people collecting photos of every type of door imaginable (my Pinterest door collection). I always wonder how those collecting photos of custom doors or anything out of the ordinary like tree houses, plans to use the ideas?

You might think of doors as more functional but your front door gives your home its personality, like hanging a piece of art on your wall. My goal is encourage you to step outside your comfort zone and pick one of the hundreds of custom doors possible, from your heart without making resale the primary criteria.

Wondering how to find the perfect custom door for your house? Keep reading … 

Custom Doors Can Have Different Shapes

Several years ago while vacationing in France, I took photos of these incredible doors (above) dating back to the 1500s, and amazingly people still live here and use these doors every day. Many of these doors didn't have square corners, and they were all custom doors as they were built by hand. 

When I found the photo below, showing choices for the top of the doors, I couldn't forget them and so this article began. Wilson Plywood provide a choice of wood (mahogany, red oak or knotty alder), glass options (Flemish, beveled, specialty glass or no glass) top design (square, eyebrow or full radius) and several other options like straps or grills.

Finding the Perfect Custom Door

You have many choices when you buy a door. The question is really where to search:

• You'll find a big selection of doors on display at your local box stores.
• Depending on where you live, there are showrooms for national door manufacturers like Pella or Andersen.
• Dig deeper and google “door showroom” to find regional companies with showrooms, like Harvey Building Products in the northeast. When running my handyman business, this is where we bought many doors … because my customers wanted functional, not fancy.
• For more options you can google “door millwork” and find local companies that fabricate custom doors to your dimensions and design.
• For doors with wood carving, you'll want to search for “cabinetmakers” and that search might be more word-of-mouth as very few of these people have websites.
• Last and for those more adventuresome, you can visit your local “architectural salvage” business where you'll find fascinating doors from years past.

But wait, there are more places to search to begin to learn about the thousands of custom doors from which to pick your special door:

• Search Pinterest for “doors” or “front doors” and you'll find a wide range of doors, although many of them will be similar to the colorful and fun doors shared below.
• Visit Houzz.com for beautiful, high end doors in projects completed by architects and custom builders.
• Finally and surprisingly, you can search google for “doors” and then link to their “images” to find the most comprehensive group of doors possible … and that's how we found the 3 doors below, including the third one which came from Houzz. 

Colorful & Unusual Custom Doors