What to Know Before Ordering Custom Doors and Millwork

Custom millwork is one of those parts of a renovation that people
underestimate until they are standing in a doorway that does not quite fit.
Doors, molding, trim and stair parts are where a house stops looking generic
— and where mistakes are most expensive to fix.

Here is what to sort out before you place an order.

Measure the opening, not the old door

Existing doors warp, settle and get painted over. Measure the rough opening
itself — width, height, and the depth of the jamb. In older homes especially,
openings are rarely square. A good millwork supplier will ask for
measurements at three points and work from the smallest.

Decide on swing direction early

Which way a door opens affects hinge placement, hardware and sometimes the
whole order. Stand in the opening facing the direction the door will swing
away from you. If the hinges are on your right, it is a right-hand door.
Getting this wrong on a custom order is not a quick fix.

Match the species, not just the colour

Stain behaves differently on oak, maple, poplar and pine. A new door stained
to match existing trim will only look right if the wood species is close.
Take a photo, and if you can, take an offcut of the existing trim to the
showroom.

Interior and exterior are not interchangeable

Exterior doors need weather resistance, proper thresholds and often a
different core construction. An interior door used outside will fail —
usually within a season.

Budget for lead time

Custom millwork is made to order. Depending on the profile and species, four
to eight weeks is normal. Order it before demolition starts, not after.

Where to get it done properly

The difference between a good millwork order and a frustrating one is usually
the supplier’s willingness to ask questions before taking payment. Local
millwork shops tend to be better at this than national retailers, because
they are the ones who will hear about it if the door does not fit.

In central Arkansas, custom doors, windows and millwork from
https://www.kaufmanlumber.com/by-design/ is one example — a dedicated
millwork operation attached to a lumber yard that has been trading since
1952.

A final tip

Order trim and molding in one batch. Running short means a second order from
a different production run, and the profiles rarely match exactly.