5 interior door styles for your home decor and budget

Shopping for interior doors? Choosing the right doors can be a big job. Most homeowners are looking for a cost effective balance between the practical--function and performance--and architectural interest and aesthetic design.

Think about integrating your doors with the style of your house or your décor--contemporary, country, rustic, traditional, arts and crafts, Victorian--or go more exotic with art deco, Asian or retro.

Top interior door brand names

For a full range of choices, ask a contractor about any these popular brands:

• CraftMaster
• JELD-WEN
• Masonite
• Simpson Door Company

Your local Home Depot also offers a large selection of name brand doors, or you can shop for a store brand such as Lowe's ReliaBilt.

Infinite designs bring together style, color and function

Interior doors are available as slab doors--if you're using the existing frame and just replacing the door--or pre-hung, if you're replacing both the door and the frame. You also have style choices based on your home décor and the door's function:

1. Panel: rail and stile construction with raised or flat panels and configurations (2 panels or 3 panels, for example); a classic choice
2. Flush: Clean and simple for the budget-conscious homeowner, these doors provide contemporary style.
3. French: available in wood or MDF with a variety of glass pane--clear, etched, or frosted--configurations; always a popular and elegant choice
4. Louver: Available in full or half louver and ideal for closets, pantries and laundry rooms, these doors facilitate ventilation.
5. Bi-fold/pocket/sliding: These doors fold or slide back in areas where space is at a premium.

No matter what door style you choose, your choice of stain can add a personal touch. Stained oak is classy while rustic pine is warm and cozy. Mahogany is a popular dark wood stain while white oak is a good choice for lighter doors.

Cream and white are standard door paint colors for indoors, but many designers recommend painting doors bright colors for décor accents. You may not need to paint, however. Some manufacturers now offer a kaleidoscope of interior door colors from red to aqua to eggplant.

Materials and cost factors

Function, design and cost can all factor into your choice of door materials. Here are some options for materials:

1. Wood doors: Available in many species, wood doors are durable, dampen sound and can either be stained or painted.
2. Molded doors: Made of composite wood or medium-density fiberboard (MDF) and available with a smooth or textured finish, these doors resist shrinking, warping and cracking. Solid core doors provide better sound insulation, stability and support for high traffic areas; hollow core doors are less expensive and make sense for doors with less traffic. They are generally primed and ready for paint.
3. MDF stile and rail doors: Offering all of the advantages of MDF, these doors have traditional stile (vertical piece) and rail (horizontal piece) craftsmanship; they also come primed and ready for paint.

An interior door can cost from $20 to $1,500 or more depending on style, material and hardware, according to costhelper.com. A basic slab door--hollow core, composite--runs $20-$100; a pre-hung door costs about 50 percent more.

Solid wood doors run $200-$500 with more expensive woods running two or three times that much. You're looking at $50-$200 for single French doors and $300-$800 for double doors, but the price for all doors goes up for any extras and installation.

If you don't already have a local contractor or outlet where you can purchase interior doors, use the form on this page to help you get started.