At the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Irvington, Arciform was hired to create a new door pair for the church’s grand entrance as part of a larger restoration effort. The doors were pulled to be stripped of paint and restored, but once the paint came off we were able to see that the doors needed replacing; there was old chipboard in between the wood layers, which was part of the reason the doors were failing. In the Gothic-arched entryway, there was a decorative wooden transom that is in very good shape, so it remained installed. Our challenge was to replicate the design of the failed doors, but re-design them to better align with the details in the original transom. Some of the panels did not line up well with each other, and this was a chance to improve on the previous door pair. 

The new doors continue the panel design as though they were made at the same time. The transom is stained oak on the inside and painted red on the exterior. We made the new doors with triple-laminated stiles for strength and stability, and this permitted us to use quartersawn oak on the interior of the door while using a more paintable Douglas Fir on the exterior. We created new jamb legs to receive new heavy-duty hinges that were up to the task of supporting these massive, heavy doors. The surface-applied strap hardware was salvaged from the previous doors and stripped of their years of paint and were given a fresh coat of flat black to complete the look.