Bespoke Contemporary Oak Doors

Custom size contemporary doors, built to your opening

Bespoke contemporary oak doors are the plainer faces in the made to measure range, built to the width and height of the doorway you have rather than to a size held in stock. What sets them apart from the period designs is restraint: flat panels instead of raised and moulded ones, square edges instead of mouldings, and fewer, larger divisions across the face. That makes them the natural choice in a renovated room or a new extension, where a heavily detailed door would fight the rest of the space.

What makes a face read as modern

Three things do most of the work. Panels sit flush rather than raised, so the face reads as one plane instead of a series of frames within frames. Edges are square rather than carrying an ogee or bead, which removes the shadow lines that date a door. And the divisions are fewer and larger, whether that is two tall panels, a run of flat panels in the shaker manner, or a face grooved vertically so the lines run floor to head. None of it is minimal for its own sake; it is simply less ornament in front of the oak.

Solid oak with nothing to hide behind

A plain face puts more weight on the material, because there is no moulding to catch the eye and distract from the grain. These are prime grade A solid oak doors, kiln dried before they are worked so the door stays true once it is hanging in a heated room, with mortice and tenon jointed frames and panels set into them. Because it is oak throughout rather than an oak face over a core, the grain and colour vary from door to door and that variation becomes the detail. Character grade oak is available on the same designs where a knottier face suits the room.

Why a plain door shows a poor fit sooner

Trimming a stock door is a compromise on any design, but on a plain face it is harder to disguise. With fewer divisions, the eye reads the stiles and rails directly against each other, so narrowing both stiles to squeeze a door into an opening is immediately visible. Vertical grooving is less forgiving still, since taking width off the edges leaves the spacing uneven across the face. Building the door to the figures keeps the proportions the design was drawn to, which is the whole point of ordering to measure.

• Flat panels sitting flush rather than raised and moulded
• Square edges, without the ogee or bead that dates a face
• Two tall panels, flat shaker layouts, or a vertically grooved front
• Fewer, larger divisions, so the grain carries the detail instead of the mouldings
• Groove spacing and stile widths set out to the door, not left uneven by trimming
• Character grade oak where a knottier face suits the room

Mixing modern and period faces in one house

Most houses being renovated end up with both, and the usual approach is to keep the plainer faces to the parts that have been opened up or extended and leave the period rooms alone. Where the older half of the house needs doors too, the period layouts are in traditional bespoke oak doors, and the full made to measure range sits in made to measure oak doors. A doorway that needs borrowed light rather than a solid face is covered by made to measure glazed oak doors. How the service works is set out on our made to measure doors page, and if a standard size fits, the stock range is in modern oak doors.