News

Here at Internal Doors we love repurposing and using DIY hacks to breathe new life into old or unused pieces. The transformations you can create are incredible! We asked some brilliant interior design bloggers about their favourite repurposing projects and asked what advice they would give to first time upcyclers.

We highly recommend that our customers treat their newly delivered internal doors before they are fitted. This gives the doors the best possible level of protection and allows the customer to achieve their desired look.

Upcycling involves taking a useless or broken down item and turning it into something that is useful or more valuable. The concept of upcycling was first popularized in 1997, when Gunter Pauli wrote a book called "The Upcycling Concept". Since then, there have been several other titles written on the subject, including McDonough and Braungart's "Cradel to Cradle: Remaking the Way We make Things", which was published in 2002.

The Internal Doors photo competition is the perfect chance for you to showcase your creative side. We have a number of prizes on offer and all you have to do is send us photographs of your internal doors, external doors, skirting, door furniture and any other items purchased from the Internal Doors website.

A couple of months back, our Marketing Manager Jade found an injured pigeon in her garden. After researching for somewhere to take the pigeon, Jade discovered the Nuneaton & Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, and upon taking the pigeon in and seeing the wonderful work the sanctuary's staff do, saw it as an opportunity for Internal Doors to do their bit to help. Read on to find out more about our day and the brilliant work the sanctuary do!

There's always scraps of wood lying around the Internal Doors' offices, and since we hate waste, and love making stuff, we decided to try our hands at making this awesome wine bottle and glass holder!

If you're replacing the doors in your home, don't just throw the old ones away; with a little creativity and elbow grease you can turn old doors into something completely unique and awesome!

The doors in your home are not just portals separating rooms from one another, they are potentially beautiful, artful pieces of design, especially older, ornate period doors and restoring these doors to their original glory though can be a trying task. There are simple, non invasive paint removal techniques which are better for your door and the environment, We'll be exploring them.

Bifold doors are the ideal solution for wardrobes and doorways that are positioned in a way that makes traditional outwards opening doors impractical; usually this means that something is blocking part of the doorway. Below is a step-by-step guide to installing bifold doors in your home.

Installing a letterbox is probably not something many of us think we will ever have to do, but if you live in a particularly old home and you have to rely on an outdoor mailbox, or your front door was built without a pre-installed letterbox, the thought must have crossed your mind at least once. If you want to take the DIY approach and fit your very own letter box, we've devised this handy, step-by-step guide.

An average homestead will be full of potential hazards for young children. Any free-standing furniture could easily topple and fall on them and there will undoubtedly be numerous electrical cables hanging around, which they could quite easily trip over. However, doors are often overlooked when it comes to child safety in the home. so here we've collated a number of tips that should help you make the doors in your home completely child-proof.

A DIY job almost custom-made for a beginner, fitting your own door handle is actually rather easy once you know how. Fitting it yourself will not only mean a saving on labour costs, but will give that sense of subtle self-satisfaction that only DIY can truly bring. Follow the steps below and find out how fitting a door handle will take you no more than half an hour!

Most exterior door frames are made of wood, and this means that they are vulnerable to damage from the elements. You can prolong the life of your door frames by treating them with a weather proof paint or varnish periodically, but even frames that are well cared for will eventually start to rot or decay. Read on to find out how to repair a rotten door frame in your home.

Either replacing a mortice lock or fitting one on a brand new door is a task that might be a little beyond the reach of your average DIY enthusiast. It's a complicated job that should only be undertaken by confident DIYers who are certain that they won't potentially destroy a perfectly good door. Here we'll break the task down into 10, easy to follow steps...

View vintage adverts to see how living room interior design has changed through the years

Hanging a door is quite straight forward, but getting it wrong will cause a lot of problems when using the door forever after. Large gaps between the door and frame will allow drafts when shut but a fit that’s too tight will prevent it shutting at all or will cause it to stick when closed. And if it isn’t lined up properly the door will not latch or lock properly so it’s a job worth getting right first time.

Doors are constructed of many different materials and methods these days and so will burn at different rates. Therefore they will provide different levels of protection against the spread of fire but what the consumer needs when purchasing fire safety products is reliable consistency. Something that can give the purchaser peace of mind that the label boasting a products safety credentials is something rigorously tested, meticulously enforced and therefore worth having. With this in mind there was a need for the authorities to regulate and certificate different doors regarding their fire protection properties. They needed to apply minimum standards for the branding of fire resistant doors as part of UK building regulations to reduce the confusion for consumers and building managers. Victorian 6 Panel FD30 Generally speaking fire doors are not required by law in residential homes unless they are rented out for tenant accommodation in which case there are regulations regarding multiple occupancy properties. Planning and building regulations regarding fire doors do however apply to doorways between houses with an adjacent garage and buildings of three or more storeys, including loft conversions, as there is considered to be an increased risk of fire or problems regarding escape. There are hundreds of pages of government fire safety advice for the home owner and we wouldn't dilute the precisely worded message by summarising them in this small article so please check out the government advice here. Every home is different and it is ultimately the duty of the responsible home owner to fit fire doors where fire safety is a heightened risk. Any home alteration project should include a fire risk assessment and if in doubt go for the safest option. Do only rated fire doors offer protection ? Some non fire rated doors do offer some protection against fire if properly fitted simply because they will prevent the spread of smoke between rooms and provided smoke alarms have been fitted this should give the occupants time to escape. However once the doors do catch fire they may burn at different rates, so one door may be completely destroyed in a different amount of time to another of the same brand. It is this inconsistency that fire door testing and British standards seeks to eliminate and why fire safety certified can be relied upon. So if a door is labelled 'FD 30' you know that door is ensured to give 30 minutes protection from the spread of fire. Like with smoke detectors, fire doors are not a legal requirement in most homes not because they aren't a wise idea but because the enforcement and regular on-site checking of such measures would be a very costly exercise, all passed on to millions of consumers. However, if you do decide to fit fire doors then our catalogue will allow you to choose both safety and style in a wide range of doors. Images courtesy of sxc.hu