Half outside, all year. No other wood in the building takes what a door takes.
The work pew companies won't quote
Your entry doors are the first thing every visitor touches and the last thing anyone budgets for. Stripped, repaired, refinished and rehung — without the building standing open.
Church doors fail faster than anything else in the building because they are the only wood you own that lives half outside.
They are also the first thing a visitor touches. A sanctuary can be immaculate and a peeling door will still set the tone before anyone is through it.
Why doors go first
South and west exposure will destroy a door finish in six years. Nothing else in your building takes that.
UV breaks down the finish from above while water gets in from below, and the two work together — once the film cracks, every rain drives moisture into end grain that then swells, shrinks, and opens the crack further. That cycle runs a few hundred times a year.
Then there is the mechanical load. An entry door on a busy church opens and closes several thousand times a year, and every one of those is a shock through the stile-and-rail joints. Doors that were hung plumb in 1950 are carrying decades of sag at the top hinge.
The result is that most church doors get painted. Paint is cheaper and it hides everything, and once a set of oak doors has been painted, getting back to the wood is a long, expensive job that many congregations never do. If your doors still show grain, that is worth protecting now rather than after the next committee decides to paint them.
What we do
An honest limit: if a door has been painted, stripping back to bare wood is most of the cost of the job and we cannot promise what is under there until we start. We will open a test patch first so you can decide with your eyes open.
The test patch
A weathered door lies about what is under the grey. Sometimes it is sound oak that has only lost its finish; sometimes the surface fibers are gone and it needs to be cut back before anything will hold. So we open one panel first, in a spot that does not show, and you decide with your eyes rather than our description.
Scheduling
The whole objection to restoring church doors is the disruption. We schedule around it the same way we schedule pews.
Hung and locking before a single original comes off its hinges. Your building is secure and weathertight the entire time.
Strip, repair, finish and cure flat, where a finish film can level properly instead of sagging down a vertical face.
Back on before the weekend, plumb, with the swing, the latch and the closer set. Weddings and funerals continue throughout.
Your entry is secure and weathertight every night the doors are with us.
Published pricing
Quoted per item rather than per foot. These are real ranges from real work, not a starting-at number designed to get us in the door.
| Work | Typical |
|---|---|
| Entry or narthex doorStrip, repair, refinish, rehang. Per leaf. | $1,500–4,200 |
| Paired entry doorsThe most common scope. Includes threshold and weatherstrip. | $3,400–8,800 |
| Interior sanctuary doorLess exposure, less failure, less money. | $650–1,900 |
| Stripping painted doorsAdded to the above when paint has to come off first. | +$400–1,100 |
| Joint and rail repairRe-wedging a racked door, per leaf. | $280–900 |
| Threshold and weatherstripReplaced as part of any door job. | $120–380 |
| Door hardware restorationOriginal handles, strikes and hinges cleaned and refit. | $150–600 |
Done in the same visit as pew work, all of this costs materially less — one mobilization instead of two. Every price on one page.
Questions we get asked
Three to five working days for a typical pair. Temporary doors are hung before yours come off and stay until yours go back, so your building is never open and never unsecured — including overnight.
Yes, but be clear-eyed about it: stripping paint is most of the cost, and until we start we cannot tell you the condition of the wood underneath. We open a test patch first and show you before you commit to the full job.
Restore, in almost every case. A pair of original oak or walnut church doors cannot be bought today at any sane price — a comparable new pair runs $12,000 to $30,000 and will not match the opening, the hardware or the building. Restoration is usually a third of that.
Replace only when a door has rotted through structurally in multiple rails, which is rare in a building that has been heated.
Six to ten years on a south or west exposure, ten to fifteen on a sheltered or north-facing one. Then a maintenance coat — not a full strip — if you catch it before the film breaks. Catching it is the whole game, and it is a two-minute look every spring.
Yes. Original handles, strikes, kick plates and hinges get cleaned, polished and refit wherever they are sound. Old church door hardware is almost always better than what you can buy to replace it, and it is a large part of why the doors look right.
Yes — window sash, exterior trim, columns, porch and steeple woodwork, and handrails. If it is wood and it is on your building, ask.
They do pews and stop. When the doors and the chancel furniture need work too, most churches end up hiring a second contractor who has never worked in a sanctuary. We do the whole room in one mobilization.
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