Simpson is in my opinion the best "off the shelf wood door" available. Jeldwen is a pretty good door it was better when Morgan owned them but they were dumbed down a little in my opinion when they were purchased by Jeldwen. As far as the Aurora F/G door this if I am not mistaken is the IWP doors which were at the time before Jeldwen purchased them shaky at best in my honest opinion and I have seen no evidence in any of the products Jeldwen produces that they are higher quality than under the prior manufacturers.

Amity: thanks for the work to post info on faux painting! I really appreciate your comments--and those of the others with faux finish experience. I had hoped to give it a try on the basement stairwall today, but no can do. This is a "distracted day" and a "bad eyes" day* so I'm not up to the task of reading posts carefully let alone working on tiny details, but maybe by Sunday I can really concentrate on the directions for the technique and follow the links thoughtfully? Meanwhile, I'm gonna prime the metal doors in anticipation of a tan base coat, which will eliminate the "moby dicks" in the room until a final solution is chosen. Worldmom: Your situation indeed sounds much like ours. Your carpenter has a good idea and if he knows what he's doing, this is a great solution. Is your oak-faced metal door with chalkboard ready to photograph? Even if it's not mounted in room? Am eager to see edge details close up. (I had threatened to use chalkboard paint on metal door in earlier plan for the room, but the lobby has become more formal and there will be some large framed art pieces on walls also so don't want door to rival them. Have considered a mirror in the center panel, surrounded by oak frame like you're doing.) ____ Should anyone care why we're having a hard time deciding on doors, continue reading. We've got a pair of oak two-panel doors for the lobby closet bypass doors and will add a single matching oak two-panel on the top of basement stair in pocket door. These are Jeld-Wen from HD. DH feels that these compliment the "shaker" style of cabs and he just likes them. He bought them months ago so they're a given. There are actually two metal doors in lobby. The one to garage is solid, no trim, and that's the one seen from adjacent spaces including kitchen. The other leads out to front step and has built-in full-length glass with embedded blind and that can be see from dining room and deck. So, that means I've got a one-pane and a two-pane contradiction in the room already. There are 3 more doors to be purchased: two that lead to the dining room--one from kitchen and one from lobby--and one on new kitchen closet. We've anguished over the choice for the kitchen closet especially because for a while we couldn't find a louvered oak door that was affordable and that fit the pattern of the other doors. But...there's another wrinkle as well. In the dining room, we have one of the old Atrium doors (like French door but with one fixed and one swinging door) to deck. That's a pair of full-length glass doors. This style is more like the front door, if you're keeping score here. We've decided that the two doors into the dining room have to match that style, so unlike the two-panel ones nearby, we'll have two full-length matte glass doors on the routes to dining room, one a pocket door and one a hinged one. Plus, we've finally found a manufacturer that carries oak louvered doors in two-panel and one-panel styles, so we're dithering about whether to spend the money for them instead of the cheaper "hemlock" one in the Jeld-Wen catalog. The company with the new choices in oak louvered doors is Stallion doors. Louvers, matte glass, oak. Haven't finished comparison pricing all these doors, but the cost is steep. We couldn't possibly have afforded an oak firedoor as well. We're throwing out a plain oak hollow core pre-hung that's left over from old kitchen because it won't match anything else, so we're eating the cost of redundancy also. And, as I said, we donated the old oak firedoor before we knew we could have reused it. AARGH! [*Yes, I do have bad eyes days. Has to do with muscles of eye and close focus and prisms. I have 4 pairs of glasses and switch among them looking for a good match, but some days, sigh, nothing works. Distracted days are another matter. Nothing to do with physiology.]

I have been on a mission to get rid of white trim and doors for a while now. I have painted them all with the BM Raccoon fur which is a very dark charcoal, with no undertones but black. Most people think they are black, but, it is a bit softer look than the regular black. So far, have done my office, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and just finished my laundry room yesterday. Here is a picture of the laundry room. Please excuse the mess, because, I havent done the final cleaning yet, and yesterday was also laundry day. One more room to go, and that is living room. Probably a winter project.

Robo, that's hilarious. And how did the screen hold up? Not sold on a purple door in my future. I now look at every front door of every house I pass, which means I drive down some neighborhood streets like a little old lady who wears nothing but purple. :) The older neighborhoods with the cute cottages and bungalows are just a treasure trove of fantastic doors. I want black hardware. Is that so wrong?