Simpson makes solid doors. I am sure Millworkman knows of at least a few others.

Most all of your commercially available wood doors these days are going to be sol;id wood but with a veneer. This is done as a way of making to door more stable and less susceptible to warping. Rogue Valley and Simpson both make very nice doors. Most true solid wood doors of a decent quality will come from a custom shop. I personally wood be very leary of buying doors and millwork in general from an internet dealer.

Thanks, guys.

Do you prefer one over the other among RVD, Simpson, and TruStile?

Not that familiar with the Trustile wood doors, but the MDF doors they have manufactured for years are very good so I would not be afraid the their wood doors.

Ordered some Trustile doors recently. They won't in installed for a few months. A few are replacements and the others are new installs. I did a custom moulding on the TS3000. Before ordering, I asked for a sample of the door. They are really beefy doors. Trustile will send the retailer a quarter sample of the door. I can't wait to have doors that can actually slam and you don't feel like you will break the door! The picture in the link is what they sent me as a door sample. I wanted MDF instead of wood since I was going to paint the door.

Definitely beefy and heavy doors, they are as the name implies a "true stile and rail door", like a wood door would be made. There are quite a few brands making what they call a drop routed MDF door which is made from one sheet of MDF and then the designs are routed into the panel. Not bad but definitely not as authentic looking as a stile and rail door.

Yeah, beefy doors. My current single panel doors (circa 1948) look to be solid wood, though I'm not sure what the panels are. But they're 1.375. The doors I've been quoted are 1.75 and feel massive.

To the extent that I wondered if I should use 1.375 for the pocket doors. I can imagine getting my fingers smashes in the heavy doors.

GC's recommendation was to stick with the 1.75s.

The 1.75" is what I went with as internal door. They are going to hurt if your fingers get stuck. Ask your GC to add dampers to the Pocket door hardware. The hafele hardware that I am using coming with the damper so that it slows down in each direction rather than slamming. Just like the soft close drawer mechanisms.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about the damper system.

Have you talked with Carrera Millwork?

Yeah. My GC knows Michael. I've also talked to Pioneer since they specialize in Marvin which is what I'm getting for the windows.

Pioneer quoted TruStile. Carrera quoted Simpson.

Both Carrera and Pioneer list El and El for pocket door frames and that's what Pioneer quoted. It's less clear what Carrera quoted (CMI?)

Not sure how to compare El and El vs. Johnson vs. Häfele.

Sounds like you should be set either way. Our interior doors from Carrera are painted but we got quite a bit of VGDF trim and are very happy (are you getting doug fir windows too?).

Yup. $$$. :-p

Worth it ;-)

I'm still waiting for interior door quotes from Carerra. Mike did a job walk last week. Did you buy from him, Oaktown? My GC has known him for a long time. It was fun to watch them expand my entry door from 3'0" to 3'6". :-)

Anyway, I've started looking for entry doors and admit, I have a mad crush on http://mendocinodoors.com/. I talked to Brian for about an hour yesterday. Very much the craftsman. I may actually trek up to Mendocino to see his shop.

A lot of his designs are more elaborate than my house can handle (and more $ than I can afford) but he does have some simpler designs that would fit well. And some really unique VGDF that would add a touch of distinction without being overwhelming.

On the other hand, his jambs are a bit wider than most so our 44" RO isn't going to cut it. :-p

Use a 3'-4" or 3'-5" wide door

Yeah, since it's fully custom, that's one of the primary options.

I'm not sure if there would be charge difference, perhaps due to having to modify jigs or something. I suspect not.

There's also the issue of a future replacement door. But that's very low on my list: a major point is that these are supposed to be 100 year doors (made of recovered old growth wood). I'll be tree food before the need for a new door.

That said, we're still doing framing so I'm going to ask the GC what he thinks/the effort to enlarge the RO.

I've been looking at 42/80 doors and a lot of them look kind of fat to me. So going down to 40 might be better esthetically, too.

It'll depend a lot on the lite design in the door, I suspect. I'm trying to make it fit with the rest of the fenestration. That could be tricky.

Hi aptosca, we did get our interior door and trim package from Mike, very happy with everything. The Mendocino doors are beautiful -- a worthwhile splurge for the front entry? We used some East Bay company for our front door, don't remember the name but they did a nice job. Nowhere near as fancy as the Mendocino shop.