We've actually got this same problem, but much worse. I hadn't gotten around to dealing with our door yet, but because of this post, I took a closer look at it. I kept wondering what the deal was. It's got bad rot holes on both sides at the bottom. It felt like a heavy solid wood door, but there's some type of screen material that I can see under some of the areas. I kept thinking I'd put a kick plate over it or deal with it somehow when I could. Now, just barely, in one spot on the edge, I can see the lines from the veneer. The door is arched and would be difficult to replace. What's the best way to get the veneer totally off, where do you buy the new veneer, and what type is best? I ask this totally realizing that it may be a really stupid-sounding question to many of you. :-0 By the way, steve327, your advice about putting aluminum foil over the MEK sounds great. The kitchen is the last floor I have to refinish. I pulled the linoleum up and got the glue and felt off. The original varnish only survived in a few places, and I definitely plan to try your technique. I think you've saved me some work. Thanks!

The door has to determine what it needs. How far you have to go depends on what finish you want to end up with, and how deteriorated the wood has become. To attain a perfect new-looking varnish, you would need to sand down until all greyed weathering is gone, and all surface checking is eliminated. OTOH, if you'd be happy with a mid- to dark stain job, then the weathering becomes less of an issue because the stain will cover a lot of the damage. To simply paint would be yet less prep work. We don't know how bad the wood is without a picture. Casey

"This is the same person that just loaded 20 bags of mulch in your neighbor's SUV." *chuckling* dls ~ My South-facing door takes a beating from the sun, but at least no snow, & freezing temps are rare (SF Bay Area). The main problem is that it's totally exposed, & while a new porch & some sort of covering over the door area are on my wish list, first I have to recover from this current new door project - which grew into tearing down a wall, which means re-doing the tile at the entry & matching the old 1" oak flooring strips that meet it, repairing all of the sheetrock, moving the electrical that was in that wall, & of course repainting the entire living room & entry area & finding a match for the very old crown molding & re-doing the baseboard, & of course a new threshold.....that's what I know about so far. All because of finding this beautiful "bargain" door on craigslist.

Thank you all so much. The new growth vs old growth wood was what I thought about when I saw all the doors with those warnings--I thought new random wood was unlikely to hold up like the old wood, and also our 1920's wood doors seemed thicker than the wood exterior doors still on this 1969 house. My front door faces east so even though there is a porch, it does get a lot of sun and as it is painted black, that might also be a factor that would affect the wood. Linelle, your door is gorgeous! That is exactly what I want for my kitchen, where we could use the light and I could enjoy the view to the outdoors, too. I'm going to check out the prices on the higher-quality woods...if I won't have to sell plasma, I still want wood.