Dark Oak Door Design

When looking at the vast range of doors available on the market from all the various suppliers, one can't help being amazed at the popularity attached to oak. As a timber option in home design, oak crops up everywhere in doors, floors, kitchens, furniture and staircases. All of them are dominated by options in oak.

Oak does a clever marketing job for the timber industry of today. Like the well-known toothpaste, oak has that ring of confidence in respect of its quality, its durability and its tradition. Is that why it is so popular when it comes to our choice of wooden items? Add all of the permutations of oak that the publicity machines have generated and you're obviously on a winner. Light oak, dark oak, golden oak, antique oak, blond oak, brushed oak, and distressed oak. The list goes on.

Whilst there are a number of oak species that are used in the commercial world, most of the oak finishes described above have been achieved using stains to change the base colour into something that does not grow naturally.

We are sometimes asked, "Can you show us the colour of your oak?" That's a toughie! Oak is one of the most beautiful naturally grained timbers in appearance, but it's not a single colour, it's a subtle combination of browns, tans, golds and dark yellows that create a unique natural vision. Each piece of oak has its own individual characteristics.

Have you noticed how oak doors have become more affordable now than they used to be? Oak has not suddenly become much cheaper as a raw material. Developments in manufacturing techniques mean that doors are being constructed more and more using composite cores such as MDF or particle board made of re-constituted wooden material made from lower cost species, which are then faced with oak veneers and lipped with solid oak around the perimeter. The doors are still solid and weighty in nature, but their actual oak content might only represent 15% of the total mass of the door depending on the design.

Whilst that might sound as if you have been short changed when making your purchase, remember that by using these composite cores, the manufacturer has radically improved the performance of the door in use by producing a stable product that is less likely to deform by way of warping and twisting, and they may have made a wider variety of options available to you by removing much of the cost attached to using the solid oak throughout. Additionally the reduction in the amount of oak used in the door means that a valuable resource is being used conserved. Oak used in most doors is harvested from managed forests to ensure that it will be available for generations to come.

You might come across 'oak effect' products. Sometimes, these are manufactured using timbers that are similar in appearance to oak. Chinese ash and the delightfully named Kembang Semangkok, known more commonly as KSK, are sometimes substituted for real oak to further reduce costs.

When choosing a door, check the specification of the product being offered to you to see how it is constructed and what species are involved. It is all a matter of judgement as a cheaper door may appear more attractive from a cost saving point of view, but it will not probably last as long as a more expensive door, nor retain its appearance over time.

Changing a door is not something undertaken lightly and it is not to be done too often, so go for the best quality, and down the years oak doors have proven their value by retaining their appearance over time and adding a comforting feature to any room setting.

In recent times, interior oak doors have increasingly gained popularity amongst homeowners. This is partly due to the fact that they are durable and tend to last a long time, not forgetting their exquisite ornate designs which make these doors a style statement in whichever home they are used in.