Has anyone had their original doors "re-hung" the modern way?

[SupermarketMum]

we have beautiful original wooden doors. We want to re-hang them so they don't open "towards the room", if that makes sense? but the builder who is doing some work here said that in his experience, sometimes the end result isn't very good, as due to the location of the knob and the hinge there needs to be a lot of filling, and also the door might not have perfect square angles so might not fit properly..

but I don't know if that's enough reason not to try? It's breaking my heart to put these doors in the skip and replace them with new doors. Has anyone had their original doors re-hung, and if yes what was the end result?

(we'll also need to paint them in fire proof paint as we're having our loft converted)

Is this a thing? I've never heard of it. Our house is 30 years old. Upstairs the doors open into the room and downstairs the lounge opens into the hall but the rest open into the room. When did this modern way start?

@Zonder sorry my opening post wasn’t clear. By opening into the room I just meant, the hinge isn’t on the side I expect it to be. Once you walk in you need to walk around the door to go into the room, rather than the door opening towards the nearest wall.

I don’t mean I want to open the door towards the hallway.

Yes I have. One issue is light switches as they often then become behind the door.
It bothers me more in some rooms than others, and I decided against it in my current home.

We did this on kitchen and sitting room and it was great space-wise - easier to get furniture into the room and nothing banging onto cabinets or sofa. Both doors go flat against the wall.

That said we didn't really go for a perfect finish so swapped handles work but are a bit scruffy and light switches are behind the door so trickier to get to, but we never use the main light. Doors fit okay, not perfect but they shut properly.

What's the modern way of hanging doors?

We're content with most of our doors opening as they originally did, but have had a couple rehung to open outwards - the landing is huge, and having clear space inside the door made the rooms much more usable in terms of the bathroom layout and ability to fit storage in the smallest bedroom.

If you're painting the doors with fireproof paint anyway then I wouldn't worry about the filling being noticeable. The paint is pretty thick and opaque, with several coats needed. Any competent carpenter should be able to fill them perfectly well enough to be unnoticeable under paint.

In terms of the concern about weakening the door by cutting out for the latch on the other side, this will only be a significant issue if the existing and proposed latches are both recessed into a pocket in the door anyway. Our house is a similar age to yours and the doors have surface mounted rimlocks (like these Rim Locks - Rim Latches - Broughtons Lighting & Ironmongery) so no significant weakening of the doors to fit them.

For anyone wondering what I meant, this is a great example. The doors open into the middle of the room rather than towards the wall. It means that if you have furniture depending on how it’s placed, the door will clash against the furniture.

I’ve lived in houses with both ways of doors opening, and can honestly say it really has made no difference. The only time I’ve had a door rehung was when converted a big cupboard to an en-suite so that door opened into bedroom. I think you just adapt to the house, which is cheaper and less trouble than making the house adapt to you.

I think you’d be mad, personally, unless the rooms are so unworkable small it’s unlivable.

We have done it with some rooms, but not the bedrooms or the bathroom for the privacy reasons you mentioned. The light switches were a pain.

We’ve done this several times in different Victorian properties - re hung the doors from the Victorian way to the modern way where the door folds back against the wall. Luckily none of our houses were massively wonky, so no big gaps. Yes you will get cracking in the paintwork over time, where the old knob was. If any of your doors are warped it is a PITA as the door stop (the inner bit of the frame which the door closes against) won’t fit well.

In our most recent work we replaced all the doors with new ones (which were fire doors and a perfect match for our victorian ones - got them from Todd Doors, Knightsbridge style I think). Cost was the same as stripping and repainting and rehanging our old doors. I have to say it has given a much better result.

Well today I have learnt there is a "modern way" to hang doors.

TBF I have just check the doors in our thirties flat and the bedroom and bathroom doors open away from the wall but the living room one opens towards the wall. So clearly the living room one is modern without trying.

My house is early 18th century and has a mis-mash of modern and Victorian door hanging. All the doors are original (except the attic which were added when the house was modernised to comply with building regs).

I'm going to call our style "Georgian Chaotic"

If you have two doors which are opposite each other couldn't whole door and frame be swapped with the other room?

I got the doors rehung in my previous property... it made a massive difference to the rooms, so definitely go for it!

Those door openings look completely normal to me, I am boggled by this but am going to go around my house (1920s) now and see if any rooms would be improved by swapping them!