PRO Interior Doors

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Opening Doors: Helping your clients choose the best interior doors
When it comes to interior residential details, doors matter more than many other elements for three reasons. First, doors are large and visually prominent. Doors also serve the vital purpose of maintaining privacy when needed. And finally, doors should work well mechanically and feel substantial and trustworthy as people interact with them daily. This is where solid core doors make sense as an upsell to your clients. They’re one of the main upgrades you can recommend, but you need to be able to compare them to the most common alternative, hollow core doors.​

Few homeowners have the skill and patience to install their own doors, so this sets you up to take on the work. But before you get that far, you should be offering technical and stylistic guidance when it comes to door choice. Beyond the advantages of solid core versus hollow core, here are key sales points to keep in mind as you work with your clients:

Panel patterns: Most interior doors have either a simulated frame and panel face pattern or, in the case of solid wood doors, actual stiles and rails and panels joined together in traditional ways. Encourage your clients to break free from the standard 6-panel door that’s so common. There are many different configurations available. Also, are you renovating just a room or two? Explain that changing all the doors in that area of the house makes sense because multiple doors are often seen at the same time.  One nice new door in an area of the house with older, different doors in view won’t look great. Ultimately the visual disconnect won’t do your reputation any favours, even if it was not necessarily your decision. ​

Style trends: People are moving away from traditional interior décor styles and moving towards modern, minimal, Scandinavian aesthetics and something called “Japandi”. This is a fusion of Japanese and Scandinavian styling that creates clean lines and a hybrid look that’s unique and especially popular right now.
Doors that are well suited to modern styling trends include:

• Flat panel doors - These have flat, recessed panel areas surrounded by vertical stiles and horizontal rails as opposed to standard raised panels.
• Absence of contoured profiles - Flat surfaces and square edges create the clean lines and freedom from woodgrain texture that’s the hallmark of modern designs.
• Distinct panel designs including 1, 2, 3 or 5 panel configurations.​

Barn doors: This is a rolling track that suspends a door from above and allows the door to slide one way or the other. The popularity of this option has remained high for years now. One reason is because kits are available that include all the rollers, screws, handles, nuts and bolts required. It’s easy to look like a genius when you install an interior barn door with kits like this.

Many interior doors come unfinished, so prepare yourself to offer finishing services.   Government response to the pandemic has increased the need for indoor privacy, and barn doors are a useful option for easily dividing large rooms into smaller spaces. Just be careful not to get your clients’ hopes up when barn doors are not an option. While it’s true that barn doors can free up valuable floor space, they can only be used when there’s enough wall space on one side of the door opening for the barn door to slide over, with no light switches, outlets, window or vents to get in the way on that wall space.

Who would have thought that doors offer so many possibilities for design and function? Learn to explain the options to prospective clients, including time-saving pre-hung doors, and it’ll help you get more of the respect and work that every contractor wants.​