Installing the doors
There’s plenty to consider when choosing doors, and the decisions need to be made pretty early on in your project. While they might not get installed until very near the end of the build (largely to protect them from damage), the structural openings, thresholds and other critical details must be finalised well in advance to ensure that everything works as intended.
The front door goes in
If you’ve been following our Education House coverage, you’ll know we ran a reader vote to choose the colour of our Kloeber Funkyfront timber entrance door. We wanted something with a bit of pop and wow-factor, and we’ve certainly got that with the winning bright orange hue. In fact, it’s already generating a bit of a stir amongst our neighbours!
The final design includes a glazed toplight in the frame and a Hamburg 4 door panel, which features a central glazed column. This adds interest and continues the theme of maximising natural brightness throughout.
Kloeber offers an install service for its doors, but we agreed some time ago that our main contractor, Drewett & Hunt, would fit the Funkyfront. It’s simply a timing thing: putting the choice out for a reader vote meant we couldn’t order in time to coincide with installing the apex windows.
Thankfully, it’s a pretty straightforward process – helped by the fact that Kloeber provides a full kit of parts and easyto-follow installation instructions. With the door in, we now have a fully weathertight and secure house, so we don’t need to rent our site cabins any more!
The bright hue of our door may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but once the porch is on and the planting in, the colour should soften a little. And because we’ve gone for timber, versatility is built-in; so a future owner could always repaint the frame or even the door, should they wish.
Selecting internal doors
Internal doors have a massive impact on the look and feel of a house, so it’s worth spending plenty of time researching your options. I mentioned a couple of months ago that we initially planned on using JB Kind’s pre-assembled doorsets (which include the lining, frame and door). In future, I’d expect many self builders will go down this route for the speed and certainty it offers in terms of getting the installation right on site. But for us, it made more sense to go for traditional fit.
One of the key reasons for this is that the lead times on doorsets are longer than we really wanted (partly because they’re becoming more popular). We needed to crack on installing our door linings so the plasterers could get their work done – so we couldn’t afford to wait.
When we first sat down with JB Kind to talk through our options, they were open in saying that – at the moment – traditional fit is slightly more cost-effective on a single house with up to around 16 door panels. As it happens, the Build It Education House fits into that category.
Design-wise, we were tempted by JB Kind’s laminate doors, as the latest ranges do an excellent job of replicating the look of timber veneers while offering guaranteed colour consistency. But for the time being, there are more style and stock size options with real-wood surfaces – and we loved the look and versatility of the Tigris Oak veneered door. The finish should add some warmth to the interiors and complement the feature staircase (see page 64).
The open-plan nature of our project, and the fact we’ve included a basement, means several of our doors need to be fire-rated for 30-minute protection (FD30). In fact we decided to specify most of them in this format, as their weight means they’re more satisfying to use than standard units. As we’ve got good floor-to-ceiling height, we’ve also primarily gone for 2,040mm tall versions (as opposed to the usual 1,981mm) to accentuate the sense of space.
JB Kind has supplied all the standard internal doors for the house, along with the hinges, handles and other ironmongery we need. The only exception to this is the pocket door mechanisms we’re using for the living room, ensuite and dressing room, which we’ve sourced from Eclisse (who offer a fire-rated double door system).
Once the linings were in and bulk of the walls plastered, we ordered the Tigris doors from JB Kind on a quick turnaround of just under two weeks. Given our contractors have formed the openings from scratch, hanging them is a pretty straightforward job for our chippie, Marek, and most
of the doors are now fitted. The furniture will go on right at the end of the build to avoid the risk of damage.
The final door to be installed will be the internal glazed slider (the SF20 frameless design from Idsystems). We’ve had a slight hiccup here, in that the opening our team has made is about 45mm narrower than agreed due to the size of our service duct. Thankfully, it’s an easy issue to resolve, as the door track can simply be cut down to suit – but it did mean that Idsystems couldn’t complete the install on their first visit. They’ve been very helpful in getting the issue resolved, and will be back next week to fit the slider.