Why are 6 panel doors and white trim so common? (window, refinish, paint color)
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I notice most standard new homes since about 2003 come with white 6 panel doors and colonial trim. As an upgrade you get taller baseboards and maybe window trim. I see other styles of doors but 6 panel is most common for some reason. I know in the 90s it was still pretty common to see lauan stained or painted flat doors with white trim so I guess 6 panel was an upgrade then, but became common place during the late 90s or early 00s.
I know in a lot of houses in the 1950s-1980s thin stained trim and flat lauan doors were very common around here.
Why is stained trim not used much anymore? I only see painted trim on HGTV and everyone seems to want it. Gray shades and white seems to be today's color scheme. My guess is it is actually because painted trim is cheaper than stained trim, so everybody uses it and therefore they see it on HGTV so that's what they want.
I personally like either one. But I don't care for flat doors that much, especially flat painted doors. If I had white doors I'd want to them to be 6 panel. I really like the 6 panel solid wood doors with stain, along with stained trim. To me that looks really high quality, but you don't see it much aside from in log cabins and such. Again, I think it's because it costs more.
Our house has stained trim which I like but it also has the lauan doors which I don't like. I'd like to have stained paneled doors to match the trim but at $200 a piece to replace them with solid wood 6 panel doors I don't see an economical way to do it. I know you can paint the 6 panel hollow core doors a different color or gel stain them but I still thing it would look odd, so I just kept the lauan ones.
Yes, "paint grade trim" is cheaper than stain grade.
6pnl was clearly a supply and demand- then different styles of paneled doors became available (2pnl/arched); but the price compared to 6pnl was not exactly compatible.
Flat luan doors can still have appeal- I've seen plenty where trim was added to give the appearance of raised/inset panels.
Right now it is easier and cheaper for a builder to create a paint trim than to have them stain a wood trim. Also there are many types and colors of stain that one needs to take a chance on somebody liking or not liking. For instance, The darker wood is in style now.. Lighter colors ruled in the 1990's. Who knows when this will change.....
Additionally, many people can visualize theirselves in a home with white trim. Many are not offended by it and most can customize their color scheme with their decorating around it.
In case you haven't noticed, the six panel doors have a Christian cross that separates the top four panels. That style goes over big in the bible belt.
An issue with trim is that it can be hard to contain or transition it. A doorway can contain a wall paint color to one room, but changing door trim color between rooms can be tricky to make look professional. Whites and greys are a neutral easy out.
It's a simple, classic style that blends with nearly everything. White trim can go around pale beige or the strongest colors, and tie together primary and accent colors in the most subtle and effective way. It makes almost any wall treatment stand out.
Wood trim is nice. Wood trim is expensive. Wood trim is a blatch to refinish. Although I am hoping my next (last?) house will be a Craftsman...
Flat doors are nice; I grew up with stained lauan doors (one of which still has a small hole in it, 50+ years after I threw a toy at my sister and it, uh, stuck). But textured/patterned doors look better, IMVHO, and I don't usually care for the fancier styles; 6-panel colonial it is.
In case you haven't noticed, the six panel doors have a Christian cross that separates the top four panels. That style goes over big in the bible belt.
An issue with trim is that it can be hard to contain or transition it. A doorway can contain a wall paint color to one room, but changing door trim color between rooms can be tricky to make look professional. Whites and greys are a neutral easy out.
Laughed so hard I lost my breath. You really believe that nonsense?
Laughed so hard I lost my breath. You really believe that nonsense?
Oh... good thing I didn't point out the figure of Mary in the middle panel's grain texture.
OTOH, there is a stripe of... confirmation bias? just plain bias? in true believers that let them see what they want to see. I spent a couple of years around some converts who could see, and justify, and be smug about exactly this kind of "validation."
Which is why nearly all authentic colonial-era homes and buildings have them? White trim was elegant, as were paneled doors.
This, when giant old-growth timber was a short walk away.
Up till I guess the 1950s or so, six panel doors were actually made of wood. It's fairly expensive to make them of wood, even using machine-milled components, as each part has to be milled, and then assembled and glued together. In the 50s or so, the flat hollow doors became popular because it's a lot cheaper to have a surround of poplar or something similar and skin it with some 3/16" plywood. These sound and feel cheap compared to the six panel real wood doors.
The vast majority of white painted "six panel" doors you will see today are NOT assembled from six panels of wood and nine rails and stiles, they are one piece pressed hardboard with a simulated grain pressed into the surface. This is probably even cheaper than the flat hollow "lauan" doors, and that's why they use them; simulating a previous high quality construction with the very cheapest nastiest materials possible is a long tradition in the house building industry.
Real six panel doors are still made, but they are expensive, thus usually only used when staining is the finish.
As to why old colonial era houses have white painted trim, it's because by and large they were using whatever wood they had, so the grains and even species would not necessarily match. Stained and varnished paneling was reserved for the highest cost residences because to get attractive matched wood meant a lot more sorting and transporting of wood.
Once rail transport and machine milling became common in say 1860 or so, middle class houses suddenly abounded in moldings and stained wood, because it now became possible for a door/trim/paneling manufacturer to place orders for specific things with large vendors who maintained warehouses and could ship by rail. This was not possible in colonial times where distance from the point of usage was a huge factor in cost.
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