Replacement Interior French Doors - Possible With Veneer?

[stevehayter]

We are currently in the process of replacing the interior doors in our house, and have opted for some cottage style Oak Veneer ones like these:

http://www.diy.com/departments/cottage-panelled-oak-veneer-internal-door-h2040-w826mm/176345_BQ.prd

These are fine for most doors in the house. However, our lounge has French doors on it, which seem to be an odd size (approx 67cm wide each). I'm struggling to find any doors anywhere which match this size. Obviously a solid door can be trimmed - but none of the ones I've found match the style.

The nearest in the range we have is this:

http://www.diy.com/rooms/10-lite-oak-veneer-internal-door-h1981-w686mm/175187_BQ.prd

But being veneer, is there any way to trim this to the correct width? By taking part of the veneer off, and putting it back on maybe?

And also, being a French door, there is usually an L section cut at each end where the join which helps secure the door - but are these always required for a French doors? Being veneer, these can't be cut in for obvious reasons. But can French doors work without them?

Thanks

Steve

 

[ladylola]

Think you've answered your own question. Veneered doors usually have a solid wood lipping of around 10mm ish to allow for small adjustments but it is possible to cut it off completely , trim the door ( this really needs doing on both edges) and re glue the lippings back on. I've done it in the past myself.
By an "L" shape I'm assuming you are referring to the rebate on the meeting styles. Absolutely necessary ? No , internally you can do without them although it does seem a better quality job to have them. Your best bet here will be to plant on some strips of matching timber. The depth needs only to be around 12-15 mm so gain the room by reducing the width of the doors accordingly around another 3mm on each edge . When fitting the strips don't try to get them flush to the face of the doors keep them back a couple of mm to create a shadow line , it will look an awful lot better.

 

[stevehayter]

Thank you so much . Now just got to try and convince my chippy! Would love the meeting style rebate, and I like the timber idea. But I may struggle to find the right colour/finish without it looking weird. But I'll certainly give it a try!

 

[stevehayter]

And I probably did answer my own question. I just wondered how practical it was to cut the veneer edging off, and put it back on again. Is it fairly common practice? Or generally advised against?

 

[ladylola]

It's practical enough especially with a solid core veneered door. It's even possible on an egg box type as I've had to do that too , sliding and glueing a timber inside the door to re fix the lipping to. Practical to even a half decent chippy. It does of course take time so may be viewed as uneconomical rather than impractical.
How common is it I can't say. I'm hardly the world's most prolific door hanger , I've had short periods of nothing other than doors and long periods of no door hanging but generally it has been the odd one here and there but have had to play about with quite a few but if a chippy is working solely on new builds then it's something that almost probably never happens.