Putting glass into doors

[almondsareforevermore]

My old house is quite dark. Would it be possible to have glass put into the upper panels of the wooden doors and also have little windows cut in the front and back doors?

yes, but you need a joiner or skilled carpenter to take out the panels and leave a rebate for the glass to fit into.

Verify that the door is fully square and the tenons tight first. A joiner can take it apart and remake the joints. This is better than planing it down.

On an external door it has to be strong enough to resist a burglar, with a solid rebate on the outside and a pinned bead on the inside, and the glass retained with glazing tape into the rebate. On an internal door you might get away with beading both sides, but it is not as good. Square is stronger than quarter-round. Some people use clear silicone to glue and seal the glass into place and prevent it rattling, if tape is not used.

If you have teenage girls in the house they like slamming doors and shaking loose or cracking the glass.

p.s. if you have fire doors, it is usually not permitted to cut them. You have to buy new ones with factory-fitted fire-resistant glass £££.

I see you mention external doors. Laminated glass is burglar-resistant. It is a bit more expensive but the glass will not be a major part of the cost. The glazing tape fixes it so it is pretty immovable.

We've done it.

We have a 300 year old cottage with mullion windows. We bought old pine doors from a local antique shop that specialised in doors (strips and dips old doors). I chose six doors and asked for three of them to have the top panels changed for glass, one of which is opaque glass so that nobody can see in from the lane but the light comes through. I paid about £90 for the plain doors and £120 for the ones that he put glass in. (Think those amounts are right, it was two or three years ago).

They have made a huge difference to the light, I love them and lots of people have commented on them. My only worry with them is we have adopted a new young lab who launches himself at them every time I come in, and it scares me that he will go right through it. Hasn't so far!

I just took a dodgy photo of one of them to give you an idea.