I professionally repair furniture and there are a number of ways to handle this. Some depends on the color and opaqueness of the finish, the depth of the damage, and how particular you are (i.e., how much do you want to spend to get a "perfect repair.") There are products that you melt and fill the areas. These are typically not for beginners because of the start up costs and skill level required. A quick and dirty approach would be to fill with Bondo or epoxy putty, then sand to smooth and apply a toner (lacquer with color in it.) You'll have to go to a specialty supplier to get the aerosol toner. Don't be tempted to use Polyshades or some similar "all in one polyurethane product." Perhaps the best approach would be to contact a local touch up / repair technician who would have all the materials and knowledge to select a method and do the repair. If you don't know any, Angie's List, local independent furniture stores, or a national service like this one. Disclosure: I do some contract work with this company, but have no financial interest in them.

I have all old furniture in my 1870's house, with one exception -- my office. I couldn't find anything that would work there, so I chose some very well-made, solid cherry home office furniture by Harden that will hold up and become antique some day. So far, it's worked out very well, although I wish the wheels on the lateral file cabinets had locks -- my floors aren't level. I bought most of my antique furniture at auctions, and although I made a few minor mistakes, overall, I spent far less than I'd have had to spend for new furniture. I was lucky to find a double bed from the 1890's that takes a standard full mattress (although it's a tight fit). I'm also lucky to have parents who are very skilled in fixing and refinishing furniture. Now I need to replace my Victorian couch, which is beyond repair. I expect that I'll have to buy something new. Here is a link that might be useful: Harden Home Office Collection

Unless you fix the underlying problem of a 'stuck' panel it will only crack again, and possibly in another location. Panel construction is used to allow for wood movement. If the door was solid wood it would expand and contract with humidity like a single board. This movement will cause problems with locks and simple closing into the jamb. By using floating panels the door movement with humidity is greatly reduced. Only the width of the stiles. The panels are trapped, but NOT fastened in place (sometimes in the middle with a single nail top and bottom to prevent rattles). Panels often get glued in by paint. Nothing happens when the panel expands in high humidity, but when it tries to shrink in low humidity the panel splits. Sometimes it splits the Âin place trim pattern at the edge of the panel away from the stile. There is no simple fix that will allow the wood to expand and contract. Any fix that further restricts panel movement will result in more (or new) damage. If you manage to fill the gaps and anchor the panel well enough, the panels can even force the stile to rail joints apart. Stripping all the paint, possibly taking the door apart to repair the panels, than assembling and finishing again is the only sure fix. Many painters seem to put a rather heavy coat of paint on the panel-stile joints gluing the panels in place. This is one place that the thinnest coat of paint that will cover is best. Painting in the winter when the panels have shrunk as much as possible is also better. If you paint with the panels expanded they can expand an unpainted line on each stile when they contract in the winter. New doors should be at below average moisture content and will only expand, but storage often allows them to pick up moisture so shrinkage can occur.

Thank you Jane. You have a lovely porch too. I love your willow furniture. You are lucky to have trees to shade it. Ours gets morning sun and can get quite warm very early one. One of these days we want to close in our sleeping porch off the master bedroom with storm type windows all around to make it more of a three season porch. We've not used it in years. Used to go out there in the evenings. I used Windows Paint to the above virtuals. I have an original version of PhotoShop that came with one of those pens (by Bamboo) that a friend gave to me since they already had PhotoShop. I think they run around a hundred dollars or so. I've not looked at them for a couple years now. Both Adobe and Corel have free online trials of their photo editors. I've tried them both and liked different things about each one so I never made up my mind which to buy. Now that I have the Adobe from my friend I should ask for the Corel for Christmas from my hubby.