What door furniture to go with these white pine doors in a Victorian house

[bodgerthebadger]

Hi, advice needed please! We currently have original pine Victorian doors in our Victorian house with lovely porcelain door knobs. We love them and gutted that building regs and the work we're having done means we have to replace them with these doors. So now I am currently trying to decide what door handles would look best with these doors whilst remaining sympathetic to the rest of the house (mix of Victorian features and contemporary furnishings). I am debating between door levers on rose (similar style to www.simplydoorhandles.co.uk/door-handles/door-handles-door-handles-on-a-rose/lucca-door-handle-on-rose-zpz090.asp#!sexylightbox[prod-1340]/0/ this) OR door knobs (and, if so, what style door knobs). I cannot decide what would look good with the new pine doors (which will be painted eggshell white) -- please help!!!!

Oh no, why do you need to get rid of the original doors?

I'm I'm honest I'm not keen on those handles, From how you've described your house won't they be a bit too modern?

Not that I have any alternatives to offer

I assume this is because of a loft conversion?

Can't you have a sprinkler system installed instead of putting modern doors in? Is there another option?

You can adapt the doors I usually do in refurbs

I would get original victorian handles from ebay.

You can coat the original doors in some kind of flame retardant; there's no real need to replace them.

Victorian handles from ebay or a salvage yard

The ones in the link look too modern IMHO.

I'm not keen on that one either.

Broughtons (www.broughtons.com) do lovely period-style door furniture, as well as lots of other lovely period-style home furnishing items. However, I don't think they do door handles or knobs as cheap as the one you linked to.

Why don't you take the knobs off the doors you are getting rid of and use those? I've put old porcelain knobs on similar doors and they make them blend in better

Yes, Owlcapine it is a loft conversion. We spent AGES trying to find a way so that we could keep the original pine doors but I think we got confused (as did our builders) with how the safety regs would be interpreted by the building control officer.

A: One option would have been to install a smoke alarm in each of the bedrooms on the new floors (2 x rooms) though we would still need fire retardant doors there (pine ones painted white). Obviously, this would mean the top floor looking different to the ground and first floor where we have the original pine, unpainted doors. Think we dismissed this option in the end as we wanted continuity and thought it would look odd --- but perhaps not?

B: Or change the doors everywhere so that they would all look the same.

C: Find reclaimed/nice pine doors and treat them so that they are fire retardant but this sounded horribly complicated so we dropped this one.

D: Wait until the officer gives us sign off then put back the original pine doors. Only thing is, they are having to trim the architrave to make the FD doors fit - they are 5mm wider - so if we want to put back the original Victorian doors, we will need to pay a carpenter to do this for us and our budget is already very tight.

ARGH! Have we made a bad choice??? It got to the point where I think was getting confused and we just went with the first option. It isn't too late to change as they haven't got to the doors bit yet.....

Greencheese I am not keen either.. I was trying to convince myself that they would be OK so I am glad that you have been very honest!

Do you think then that we should go back and explore Option A? Do you think it would look OK to have ground floor and first floor with original pine doors then these new pine doors on the top floor? The new floor isn't going to have any Victorian features anyway (which still begs the question of what door handles to get !)

Thank you everyone! I love the advice from Mnetters!

Actually, looking at the broughtons website, some of their prices for door handles are quite reasonable, considering they are selling them in pairs. Have a look.

Floggingmolly we thought about this but we were not able to get a definitive answer that the building control officer would pass this.

Tractorandtree we thought it would look odd to have these nice porcelain knobs with what are obviously cheap, pine doors. Argh - or perhaps not. As you can see, I have a hard time visualising these things!

Right now, the advice above is making me rethink our options. We do LOVE our pine doors and they are in fab condition. Hmmm....

PS: Hubby has just pointed out that it may be OK for the top floor to look completely different as nobody will be going up there other than us anyway.

Or just stick with option A. I think it would be perfectly fine aesthetically. Though I don't understand why the doors would have to be painted white. Are they just not that nice to look at otherwise?

I don't think it will look bad to have different doors on different floors.

But your option C, can't you do that with your own original doors? Treat them so you don't need to get reclaimed ones?

Sorry for giving more options ha

So you don't have to replace the doors because of bulding regs, its just you want them to all look the same throughout the house?

If this is the case then I would definitely keep the original pine doors and look for other doors for the attic which meet the REGS but match as much as possible.

Why do the doors in the loft conversion have to be white painted? Why can't you have new stripped pine doors and find handles from a salvage place that are similar to the downstairs knobs- you can pick up porcelain door knobs easily.

knobs look better.

You will need a 3" or longer tubular latch if you have knobs. Short backsets only work with lever handles. If you fit a short latch you will not easily be able to fit knobs if you change your mind later.

Victorian houses usually had the doorknobs about 5" from the edge of the door. For this you will need 150mm latches.

They are not usually stocked in DIY sheds, but you can order them. Prices vary a lot.

Tubular latches are very easy to fit because the slide into a round hile drilled from the edge of the door.

Sorry for disappearing.. had to put the kids to bed. Back now.

Acheesepuff the doors in the loft level have to be fire retardant. So we could get reclaimed ones and treat them but we came across issues (e.g. not all treatment systems are universally accepted as complying with the fire regs, some reviews that the doors don't look so great afterwards) so decided not to pursue this path further. Then we thought that reclaimed doors on a level which is all brand new could be a mismatch. You are right though, we decided to replace as we feared it would look odd if the doors were different but, on reflection, I think it would look OK.

Unicycle None of the new pine doors (that are also fire retardant) we found looked that nice, not even the knotty pine ones. I think we've been spoilt by having original pine doors (7 of them) - all in fab condition and with so much character. Plus I think by that time we came to discussing doors, I didn't have head space to think clearly. Have you ever go to that point when you discuss and think about things so much, that you arrive at a conclusion then don't know why or how you got there? Or maybe it's just me . That said, I just found these which could look OK.

PigletJohn thank you, I am going to print that advice when I buy latches and door furniture for the new doors. I feel so chuffed to have you respond to my thread! I've read other advice you've given on other threads which I have used!

Don't take the old doors out if you don't have to, just put fire doors in upstairs.

Yes, agree - don't take the old doors out!

I have victorian doors upstairs and 30s doors downstairs, which irritates me because I am a purist. However they are all stained mahogany, so I don't feel as though it ruins the flow. I am looking to replace them however, but for a variety of reasons.

Put victorian style doorknobs on your new doors to tie them in. Maybe think about painting them a different colour (not white?) a solid colour might distract from the cheapness?

I would definitely keep the original doors everywhere except new top floor. New top floor is new throughout so new doors will look ok there.

This is a slightly odd suggestion but if you add an extra coat of white paint to the new doors they will look more like the old doors (new doors show more wood grain and have crisper edges as they haven't been painted so many times, if you add extra pain this difference goes somewhat).

I would use traditional style round brass doorknobs everywhere, including the top floor. Like this - I've linked to SDS but B&Q sell perfectly good ones for cheaper, I think.

The tubular latches that Piglet is talking about (in various sizes) are availablehere - although sold lots of other places - they come in standard sizes and you will want either the 153mm, 123mm or 100mm depending on where you want the handle. The centre of the knob sits about 20mm further in than the size of the latch i.e. if you get a 123mm latch then the centre of the doorknob will sit about 103mm from the edge of the door.

If you want locks on any of the doors you need a mortice lock set rather than just a latch.

this company in Edinburgh are very good for hardware www.inbrass.co.uk/

I would leave all doors as they are and just change the loft ones but I would get reclaimed doors as they are easy to come by and get them treated.

We have just moved into a Victorian house with a loft conversion. The loft has three white fire retardant doors. Rest of house has original doors and door furniture. There is no way you should remove the original doors - what a loss! You can't see the doors in the loft conversion until you go up there. Think again, I would say.