For some inexplicable reason, all the interior doors in my house are ~1981*726mm. No one seems to sell this particular size. 2040*726mm is available as is 1981*762mm, but not 1981*726mm. Can most oak veneer doors be cut down to suit?

Which way would be best?

A totally confused Daffy…

Most volume door manufacturers will state on their packaging how much you can cut off the doors. If you cut too much off if can affect the joints and strength of the door so don’t be tempted to cut too much off.

From what I remember you are more likely to be able to cut more off the height (sometimes you can cut more off the bottom) than the width but I think you’ll struggle to find one you can reduce as much as you want.

You could buy one and cut it down and see what it’s like. Remember as well that the style of the door might also dictate how much you can remove before it starts to look a bit odd, especially if panneled or in a particular design. Depending on the interior construction of the door if you cut too much off the width there may not be enough solid wood left to fit a catch.

^^This

I used to make mass produced doors for a living, some of them have very little in the way of material inside – basically a wooden frame around the outside as wide as the door is thick

Might be worth looking on gumtree or similar, always loads of doors on there

On a plus side they can be pretty cheap new so not the end of the world if it goes wrong

Sadly, I need 7 of the buggers…11 if I want them to match the whole house…

Top and bottom cut off isn’t usually too much of an issue. It’s reduction in width as you only usually get 10mm lipping at most. This is usually a hardwood and will accept being planed up and take a screw better.
The style of door is also going to be an issue if it’s a shaker type 4 panel etc as the top and bottom rails will be reduced in size.

What happened to the original doors?

I restored all of mine – took a while but I reckon it was much cheaper and probably quicker than buying and hanging new ones.

Every one of my door ways is a completely odd size. I would have loved all nice new clean crisp white internal doors throughout, but there just wasn’t anything affordable available (that i could find). Ended up buying reclaimed pine, took a while to find the right sizes, the same natural shade, the same style, in good condition, but got there eventually. Had to resort to one door being taken apart and completely resized, to fit a very small door way as i was having no luck finding a door small enough or a cupboard door that looked right.

2040*726mm is available as is 1981*762mm, but not 1981*726mm.

Knock the architraves off – screw a 36mm batten to one side of the door opening (or 18mm to each side) – that would allow you to fit the 1981×726 door. Then trim and refit the archirtraves. You’ll end up with a little gap in your skirting to patch – maybe make a base block at the the bottom of the architrave to hide the gap

🙂

Top and bottom cut off isn’t usually too much of an issue.

No no no no

Folk who cut off the top of doors grind my gears. Especially when there are two doors near each other of differing heights.

Looks awful.

I think both of those are standard sizes!Howdens oak doors.

No. The size I need is 1981*726mm – not a standard size. It sits between the two standard sizes.

Sorry – looking at that again my solution doesn’t work to many 2s and 6s in one line of text 🙂

I think the easiest option is to move house.

Well, I’ve figured out why the doors are such an odd size:

What kind of an idiot…?

Maccruiskeen was your houses previous owner 🙂

Easy fix for you.

Maccruiskeen was your houses previous owner

Takes a bow 🙂

Can imagine why someone previously would have done that for one or two doors. Seems nuts to have done all the doorways that way from the outset though