Under Stairs room/cupboard

Take some measurements if you can and post also photo of the opening if I can help I will .

 

Catchy do a basic sketch of what you think you want it to look like . This may help me even shape of skirting or architrave .

 

Kathy, two ways of making 'tongue and groove' doors; the proper way and my way.

The second - my - way is called 'cheating...'

I have a few odd-shaped cupboard doors in my house, ones with sloping corners, etc. For these I often make them out of MDF 'cos it's easy to shape and has inherent strength that doesn't rely on tenons and stuff like 'normal' doors.

And, having custom-made sloping-topped doors under yer stairs looks a lot better than 'straight' ones with 'triangles' above.

I use 12mm sheets, one main panel which is cut to the required size (with a couple of mm extra for final planing to fit), and then a series of 95mm-wide strips which I cut to length and glue on as 'stiles'.

Sounding tacky so far?

Ok, the stiles are all slightly bevelled along their edges (like a 4mm bevel using a smoothing plane) so that when the top, middle and bottom ones butt against the side upright ones there is a neat V groove there as a feature.

(NB - don't bother 'bevelling' the outside edges of the stiles yet until they are glues securely in position - then the whole door is given a final planing down to size and then bevelled.

And the piece of resistance? The cup of grace? The icing on the cherry?

There ain't one - except I also use a router to cut V-grooves in this back panel before fitting the stiles.

Once painted, it looks, er , groovy.

 

View attachment 7539

 

This was put in several years ago, as a makeshift system. haven't got round to renewing. but its simple 4x2 frames and mdf panels.

 

With a little bit of imagination you can create some cool stuff with mdf like the paneling in my conservatory just takes the boringness of plane skimed walls away.

 

That is very nice...

 

DW, the simplest method of tarting up these existing doors is to buy/hire a router and give it a faux-panelled look.

I did this on the doors to my airing cupboard - couldn't be bothered replacing them or adding mouldings, so chust grooved them, and took the sharpness off the outside edges. They were exactly like yours before - completely flat panels.

Then some architrave added around it all (it might need to go over the stair strings in your case) and some nice 'black iron' hinges, handles and locks (see what our hosts have) and that will transform what you have. Paint it in a matt or satinwood finish.

If you don't want to change the surface-mounted hinges method you currently have (which looks hellish with 'ordinary' hinges), then get some black wrought-iron 'chest' type hinges instead - make it a feature.

If you don't like the way your current doors go right up to the stair strings - and it isn't ideal - then simply cut a strip off the tops of them all and attach these strips to the string and blend them in with filler and then the architrave you add to surround all the doors will be mounted on to this strip instead - your doors will be s little lower, but will look a lot better.

I would also add that kind of strip against the newel post - these flat featureless doors just don't look good going right up to the string and newel the way they do. So adding that extra frame around it will be a transformation in itself.

I think I would keep these doors and use them as the backing panel for your 'new' doors - just modify/add to them. No real need to start completely with new stuff - that's good materials you have there.

 

Or, you could add to your existing doors as I mentioned in my first post; route V-grooves into the plain panel, and then add raised strips ('stiles') to the door, around the perimeter. You could keep it as these raised 'stiles' or even add quadrant beading to the insides to make it more moulded - a bit like Sunto's.

These are made from a 12mm MDF panels, V-grooved with 95mm wide 'stiles' added afterwards.

 

DA. Yes its a few of many things one could do, and what you have done looks very nice. We just haven't got round to thinking what would actually look nice if the understairs , was designed to 'look nice'; along with the doors. But nowadays I would have a 25mm face frame and the doors hung on hinges with knuckles only showing.. But my thinking would be to try and match the doors to the rooms, and bring about some consistency and matching finish. As if it had all been especially 'designed'.

 

That is why i asked for the info I like to impress the client and if I had to reproduce mouldings etc skirting details not available today it would look cool if I could create moulds that looked in keeping if not perfect match . I think it comes down to having pride in your work and customer satisfaction . My moto was I can do it if you can afford it .

 

Sunto - that's a raised central panel you have there? How done - routing deeply into a think flat panel?

That looks like a stunning room.


Dee-Dub, you can start from scratch or modify what you have. But, yes, lose them surface-mounted hinges! (Unless you go for nice old-style ones as a feature.)

 

Thanks it's a very nice room. The panels I did on a router table several passes we are talking years ago still good as new the frame is a kitchen door male and female scribe set which I must say was so easy to use even with the sloping joints . The panels run under the window cill around the conservatory. I recomened the look as it adds a lot of caricature to a simple structure ,