What Wood Are Doors Made Of? A Homeowner’s Guide

Wood has long been a popular choice for both exterior and interior doors around Australian homes.

It’s a strong and solid natural material, with plenty of character, and can be used to achieve a wide range of styles depending on your choice of design and finish.

Wood can be combined with glass, for a more contemporary twist, and it works in both traditional and modern homes.

You can find out more about the different types of wood doors here.

But what wood are doors made of?

There are several different types of wood that may be used for entry and interior doors and each has its own characteristics and benefits.

Here, we will look at what wood is used for doors around the home, discuss the main differences between the types of timber door material, and explain why we at Doors Plus use Pacific Ash timber for all of our solid and engineered wood doors.

Pacific Ash

Pacific Ash is the most popular choice for Australian homes – inside and out.

It has a distinctive character and exquisite natural wood grain, and can be stained with either a light or dark stain to bring out the best in the wood.

Pacific Ash is also easy to sand and paint to complement your home style and personal tastes, making it a versatile option for both exterior and interior doors.

Solid Pacific Ash is one of the most stable, resilient and secure types of wood, making it well suited to entry doors.

It provides good thermal and sound insulation, and is resistant to bending or warping.

At Doors Plus, we use high quality, sustainably sourced Canadian Pacific Ash timber for an extensive range of internal and external doors. This beautiful natural timber is an excellent choice for traditional and modern home styles, and lends itself to a wide choice of design options, with or without glass.

These are doors that uplift any home and stand the test of time.

Cherry Wood

Cherry wood is a visually appealing choice for doors because of its natural red hue, ranging from light to rich reddish-brown.

It has a close, straight grain and makes for an elegant and refined look.

A clear or light stain is the ideal finish for cherry wood doors as this brings out the natural beauty of the wood.

Image source: Pinterest

Cherry wood can be used for both interior and entry doors, but it’s important to know that the colour of the wood is likely to get darker over time if your entry door is in direct sunlight.

If your doorway is exposed to the elements – both sunlight and moisture – cherry wood may not be the most enduring choice.

Walnut

Walnut is a rich hard wood, with a distinctive dark colour.

Its wood grain often features lots of circles and knots, giving walnut doors plenty of character.

This makes it a popular choice for interior doors, where it can enhance a design scheme with its natural warmth and elegance.

Walnut doors can complement a traditional or colonial style home, or add a sense of drama to a more contemporary or minimalist scheme.

If you want to paint your wood doors to match your décor, walnut is not the most cost-effective option as its beauty and appeal comes from its natural character and grain.

For walnut doors, it’s best to opt for a wood stain to really bring out these qualities.

Walnut offers good insulation and is less likely to warp due to moisture, compared to some other woods.

Image source: Pinterest

Maple Wood

Maple is a hard and stable wood, and is therefore well suited to both interior and entry doors.

These doors will be resilient and durable, making them a good choice for anything from external doors to kitchen cabinets that get a lot of wear and tear.

This wood is less likely to crack or warp with temperature fluctuations or moisture, so can even work well in bathrooms.

If the natural wood grain is part of the appeal of wood doors, maple is not the best choice as the grain is not as prominent or distinctive as Pacific Ash.

But if you plan to paint your doors in a colour to complement your décor, maple can work well as it is less characterful than some other woods when raw or stained.

Image source: Pinterest

Juniper

A dense soft wood, juniper is known for its unique grain pattern of knots and swirls.

Its colour can vary from light to a deep brown and can be enhanced with a stain to suit your home style.

As with cherry wood, the colour of juniper will get darker with age and sunlight.

As a soft wood, it can dent more easily than hard woods, but many homeowners feel that this only adds to its weathered charm.

It’s a mid-range option in terms of cost, and is fairly low maintenance.

In fact, Juniper is surprisingly durable for a soft wood.

It doesn’t expand and shrink with temperature changes as much as some other wood types, or swell and warp with high humidity, making it a suitable choice for entry doors.

Image source: Pinterest

Hickory

Naturally dense and strong, hickory is one of the hardest wood materials on the market.

This makes it a durable and resilient choice for interior and entry doors that see a lot of action every day.

Solid hickory also provides good sound and thermal insulation, which is important when it comes to exterior doors and a home office door, for example.

The deep, red-brown colour of hickory can give your rooms a certain gravitas, and a clear or light stain helps to bring out this natural depth of character.

If you choose to paint hickory doors, the medium wood grain will still be slightly visible, but staining really allows this refined wood to come into its own.

Image source: Pinterest

Pine

Pine is a lightweight soft wood that is best suited to interior doors around the home.

It is light in colour with a tight grain, making it ideal for complementing the rustic charm of a country-style home.

A clear or light stain brings out the best in pine doors, but if you want to paint your doors they must be sanded down first.

Pine isn’t prone to shrinking, warping or swelling, but it can dent or scratch more easily than Pacific Ash.

Image source: Pinterest

Wooden Door Wood Types FAQs

• What type of wood is best for doors in Australia?

There are several different factors that affect what type of wood is best for doors in Australian homes. If you want to know what wood are front doors made of, you will need to choose a resilient and durable wood that can stand up to the elements. There is no universal answer to the question “What wood are doors made of?”, but at Doors Plus we choose to use quality Pacific Ash timber as the best material for the Australian climate and versatile home styles.

• What type of wood is used for interior doors?

What wood is used for doors can depend on your particular specifications – the location and function of your doors, the style you want to go for, and your budget. At Doors Plus, we use Pacific Ash for all of our solid timber and engineered timber interior doors. It has a rich natural character, offers a wide range of design options, can be finished to suit your style, and stands the test of time.

• What is the strongest wood?

Hard woods, such as maple and walnut, tend to be stronger than soft woods, such as juniper and pine. At Doors Plus, we use Pacific Ash timber because it can stand up to the rigours of the Australian climate, offering longevity, security and good insulation. All of our timber is quarter sawn, not face cut, which makes the wood more stable and less likely to bend, cup or warp over time.

• What is the cheapest wood? And why to avoid it?

Soft, lightweight woods tend to be cheaper than hard woods, but they can also be less robust and long-lasting. For exterior doors, homeowners often want to prioritise security, weather-resistance and insulation, so a cheaper wood might not be the best fit. You can find out more about the cost of wood doors here.

Is It Time to Replace Your Doors?

Whether you want to replace your doors as part of a style makeover, or because your old doors are tired, damaged or draughty, it’s important to understand your options.

You may want to find out more about how to insulate wood doors before going for a full replacement.

But if the time has come for an upgrade, it pays to get in the know.

So, what wood are doors made of?

At your nearest Doors Plus showroom, one of our specialists can talk you through the benefits of our Pacific Ash timber doors and explain why we use this exceptional natural material for all of our solid wood and engineered wood doors.

Come and explore our extensive range of interior and exterior wood doors for yourself, whatever your style.

We can also give you more information about wood doors sizes and how to install wood doors.

Find your nearest store and visit us today!