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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.
Well, I suggest we're talking mostly about the style, not the manufacture. Given that the modern method could turn out nearly any surface design imaginable - think Star-Trekky modern designs? - the persistence of the six-panel door is interesting in and of itself.
I also don't know that, once into the powered factory era, paneled doors were much more labor than any solid design. Edge-bonding solid timber and getting a flat, square, strong door would not be much less work than building a framed/paneled door of simple design. About the only fancy part is the edge-milling of the panels, which is not universal - there are many older doors with flat panels set into squared timbers.
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.
Actually, it and this entire style, originated in Puritan New England, not in the bible belt.
Actually, it and this entire style, originated in Puritan New England, not in the bible belt.
Without doing a bunch of digging, I'd suspect that it's no more than a refinement of what was already in use in England and Europe at the time. I'd even put a nickel or two on betting doors and other millwork were imported before local industry was up to any kind of volume production.
If they'd wanted a cross there, there would be a cross there. I'd bet the pattern is simply a combination of rigid form broken by pleasing asymmetry.
Laughed so hard I lost my breath. You really believe that nonsense?
What I "believe" is that the lock rail position and exterior frame are required structural components. The center (or first) mullion provides slight but perceptible added security. FOUR panel doors are acceptable, faster and cheaper to make. Puritans and Quakers were not prone to excess is architectural style.
How the first "bible door" came into being is moot. It was unlikely from a craftsman making his panels too short and having to add another set of rails. It is POSSIBLE that it was intended as a cross symbol - perhaps for use as an entrance to a church. If so, that it was seen as a style for use elsewhere is simply the normal diffusion of art and architecture.
Myth is a part of human experience. You may call whatever you want nonsense. Myth will outlive all of us alive today.
Myth is a part of human experience. You may call whatever you want nonsense. Myth will outlive all of us alive today.
Indeed, and six panel doors are commonly referred to as "cross and bible" doors... And that is both true and interesting, whether people believe in their religious symbolism or not.
In Colonial New England, the paneled front door of a house in which the stiles and rails of the door form a pattern suggestive of a cross, the two lower stiles and rails form a pattern vaguely suggestive of an open book, representing the Bible. Also called a cross-and-bible door.
Indeed, and six panel doors are commonly referred to as "cross and bible" doors...
I'm managed to get through a whole passel of years, involved with pretty much everything between home repairs and architecture, history and language studies... and I have never heard this term nor any explicit reference to "the cross on top."
I'm guessing it's a Southernism of fairly recent (>1900) vintage.
I'm from the Pacific NorthWest, descended from Norwegian Ancestry from Minnesota...
Well, that makes two of us.
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and that is what they've always been called to me.
Not sure why you think it's worth so much protest. So what if you haven't heard of it... many others have.
For a number of reasons, I'd be in the population that heard the term, even if only a few times. I'm not making a big deal of it; I am just saying it must be far more regional than otherwise.
Stained wood (doors, trim, cabinets or whatever) requires a good quality of wood. The materials used in today's construction usually doesn't use good quality wood, so they paint it. The white doors in my 20-year-old house look more like they are laminated with some kind of plastic coating rather than painted. The doors in my last house were the same. When I had that house painted, I asked the painters about also painting the doors and they didn't recommend it. Just wash it if it gets dirty.
The white six panel doors do really seem to be the rage these days. Everybody seems to have them.
I hate white trim, and white doors, I know, Im in the minority.
I like my doors stained and my trim painted the same color as the wall. My trim isnt fancy or decorative, so it doesnt really need to "pop" as HGTV puts it.
Here are some of my doors stained. They came from Home Depot, about 115 a pop, if memory serves me correctly. Nothing special, I stained and varnished them myself.
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Christian door 
