Sun Mountain Blog

Design Elements of a Plank Door

There are many doors out there to choose from, and sometimes that can make for some tricky decisions when searching for a new door or replacement door.  Not only are there different wood types to look at, but also varying designs.  From panel doors to French doors, it often comes down to which style you like the best.  If you haven’t looked at a plank door yet, you may want to add it to your list of possibilities.

A plank door has a simple design that can go quite a long way.  A quick search online will show you the thousands of different looks a plank door can have.  They do have a similar design to panel doors, but instead the panels are made with long vertical slats rather than squares or rectangles.  The plank design also means keeping these slats next to one another throughout the door.  They are called plank doors because the original design meant actual individual planks being placed side by side and then secured together with additional wood or metal for a completed door as the final result.

Today, we can easily get a plank door look without needing to use separate pieces of wood at all.  Instead, plank doors can be fashioned from a single piece of wood.  The planks are simply etched out of the wood to imitate individual planks.  Plank doors can have vertical slats running from the top of the door all the way to the bottom edge, or the planks can be separated into sections – some at the top, some at the bottom, and even some in the middle.

If you don’t want the door to be one solid piece of wood, you can easily include glass to the design.  From single panes to various styles of separate panes of glass, you can give the plank door the ability to let in as much natural light as you want.  The amount of glass included in the door can be anywhere from just a fraction at the top to almost the entire door with just a small plank design at the bottom.  The choice is yours.

You can decide first on the wood type and then move on to the design, or simply start with the design and choose the wood type last.  Whatever works for you and your home.  A plank door can easily be a gorgeous addition to your house.