Paint or replace internal doors?

[OneDayIWillHaveAGreatUsername]

We have just moved into our "forever" home (well until we retire at least!) and are doing it up.

One thing we want to do is paint all the woodwork white as it's currently dark wood and really sucks the light out. However we have a lot of wood in the house - 15 internal doors and two stair cases. As you can imagine the quotes for redecorating are pretty high (although we can afford it) and the reason is the amount of prep required for the vast amount of woodwork in the house. None of the decorators have suggested just replacing the doors though but friends have. I don't really want to as they have some nice details on (they are not really old) but if it's a good idea then I'm not that tied to them.

Would we be opening up a can of worms by replacing all the doors?

(Also, we are 100% having white doors and 100% paying someone else to sort them - we do not have the time, skill or inclination to do it ourselves!).

I would be tempted to keep the original ones if they have nice features but another option would be to sell your original doors and then buy new, rather than just dumping the originals. Lots of people want nice doors with features. Have a look round and see if you can find doors with similar features if you like that look.

We have the same problem, but we're painting ours ourselves as we paint the different rooms. We've also found that the newer doors we have (extension) aren't as nice as the originals.

Depends on the doors. If they’re solid wood original doors then keep them, if they’re those horrible cardboard things they belong in a skip.

Thanks both. They are wooden doors in a "farmhouse" style and we do like them. Seems a shame to replace them. Just so painful to pay for everything!

If they are solid wood and you like them then I would keep them and paint them. I hate throwing out perfectly good things. And if you’re staying there forever then it’ll be money well spent imo.

Why on earth would you not paint them? So you can either have your existing wooden doors painted white or you can take out the doors which already fit, chuck them away and put in new white doors (which will come primed but will still need painting, and fitting, and hinges, door furniture etc purchasing

I don't understand.

@user187656748 indeed - it never crossed my mind to replace for all those reasons (as well as the fact there is nothing wrong with the doors apart from the colour). However two separate visitors to our house suggested it hence my question. Just wanted to see if I was missing something obvious!

Fitting decent quality new doors will be far more expensive than painting the existing ones.

What period are the original ones. Are they solid or hollow? What is the wood.

Photos?