All You Need to Know About the Wood Species We Use at ETO Doors
At ETO Doors, we offer a huge variety of wood species within the different door models we bring you.From single interior doors to double exterior entryways, the range of wood types we offer is tremendous — and it’s that way for a reason: to bring you the finest quality, the best style, and the safest doors in the industry.
A Catalog of Different Wood Species and What They are Best Suited For
Bamboo: the Perfect Material for Interior Doors with Glass Laminate Pane(s)
Bamboo is a superior material for interior doors and works beautifully as a door with glass panes. While ETO does not carry a large inventory of bamboo doors, the ones we do carry are quite popular for interiors, as they are able to be impact and safety rated. These are not interior doors made of raw bamboo, but rather engineered solid core bamboo; this means better longevity, resilience, and the ability to be painted or finished any color you like.
Extremely long-lasting, when used for interior entryways, bamboo stands up to the test of time, kids, pets, and high-traffic areas. Available in 18 sizes as well as custom sizes, our white primed bamboo doors look great with textured safety glass. Even with glass in place, the sound doesn’t travel much through bamboo doors, making them a great option for your in-home office or study.
African Cherry: Durable and Versatile for Interior, Exterior, Cellar Doors, and More
African Cherry is an extremely durable and versatile wood that can be used for just about any door type you can imagine. From single and double front entryways to interior doors for new construction and remodeling, African cherry is tough and is a great choice for adding all manner of glass panes in a huge variety of sizes, styles, and textures. What’s more, African cherry easily allows for the addition of wrought iron, an embellishment that adds beauty to any front entryway; single, double, or French.
ETO Doors also brings you African cherry in flush door options so you can decide where fixtures will go, and this also makes them easy and affordable to order in large quantities — you won’t find African cherry in flush doors or ready-to-install doors at these prices anywhere else.
Pacific Cherry: the Perfect Wood for Exterior Entryways
Pacific cherry wood is an excellent option for exterior doors, as it extremely resilient to the elements, can be safety and fire-rated, and is easy for our team to craft using glass panes, adding panels, and adding embellishments to. Because Pacific cherry is a light wood, it’s perfect for those looking for a lighter colored entryway for their homes — as well as for business owners looking to buy Pacific cherry wood doors in bulk. ETO Doors brings you Pacific cherry wood flush doors in bulk, so if this is the wood species and grain you’re after for your large building, hotel, casino, or other establishments, these are the perfect option for you — and the price is right.
The most popular of our Pacific cherry doors is a front entryway from Escon doors: available in 36″ by 80″, the Pacific Cherry Craftsman boasts three beautiful, long panels from mid to bottom of the door with six separate glass panels embellished with wrought iron patina caming.
Douglas fir: Strong, Versatile, and Priced at a Value for Interior and Exterior Doors
Of all the wood options we bring to our clientele at ETO Doors, the Douglas fir is among the most varied, resilient, and popular. It can be used to make both interior and exterior doors work well as the species of choice for a front entryway and can be embellished with plain or textured glass as well as other hardware, per client specifications. Douglas fir can be fire and safety rated also, making it an excellent choice for interior and exterior doors. But what customers love most about it that it can be designed to make doors that are rustic, contemporary, midcentury modern-styled, and nearly any other imaginable style.
As a softer wood, Douglas fir lends itself beautifully as a species for special order doors that are made to client specifications. Choose a size, how many panels, if you would like any glass (and which texture glass you’d like), and embellishments or hardware you’d like to include if any. Douglas fir gets the job done gorgeously for front entryways when made to order. The aesthetic of this wood is naturally rosy with a beautiful swirling pattern, allowing for it to simply be sealed if the client likes the natural rosy color. However, because it is a softwood, it takes in stains of any variety perfectly.
Knotty: the Perfect Choice for a Rustic, Pastoral Look, Inside and Out
Knotty Alder, unlike its cousin, clear Alder, offers up absolutely stunning clusters of burls and knots, which give it personality other grains simply don’t offer. Because of these knots and burls, no two doors made from knotty Alder will ever be exactly alike. As a hardwood, knotty Alder makes for tremendous exterior doors, which is why it is among the top three wood choices at ETO Doors. We use it to make double and French doors for exteriors — many of these oversized and double doors are fan favorites — they offer the rustic look that is so popular today. Knotty Alder is also known as one of the most easy-to-stain wood species, too; it takes to almost any imaginable stain color or finishes to complete the design you’re after for the front of your home.
For interior doors, knotty Alder is easy to maintain, durable, and solid — no more noise creeping into or out of rooms separated by doors made from this hardwood favorite. Many of our clients choose knotty Alder doors from our selection of single interior doors for its aesthetic appeal, its ability to block out more sound than other species, and because the price we offer it for at ETO Doors just can’t be beaten. For single and/or interior doors, there are dozens of sizes and styles to choose from in knotty Alder, but as always, if you don’t see an interior door in our knotty Alder selection, you can always get in touch with us for a custom made door crafted to your precise specifications.
Mahogany: Once Rare and Expensive, Now Available, Affordable, and Highly Adaptable
At ETO Doors, we carry several types of mahogany, because each one brings its own unique grain with it. Interestingly, many people who think they don’t like mahogany because they unwittingly think it’s too dark are surprised when they find a lighter-colored mahogany door in our selection of interior and exterior doors, wine cellar doors, and even garage doors! Mahogany offers exceptional durability and adapts well to any decor style, from ultra-modern to rustic, and everything between.
As one of the world’s most popular wood species, mahogany can be used for any number of doors but excels as an exterior entryway because it doesn’t expand or retract the way other woods do when it rains when it’s hot or cold, or under any other weather conditions. This characteristic alone makes it a clear choice for exterior doors, especially for those who live in places where weather patterns are erratic or where the winters are cold and frosty and the summers are unforgivingly hot and humid. At ETO Doors, we use a number of mahogany species for everything from single exterior doors to double and French exterior entryways, and much more.
African Mahogany: Beautiful Texture and Remarkable Features at Incredible Prices
African mahogany is known for being easy for woodworkers to craft with, making it a top choice for those who would prefer to design their own entryways through ETO Doors. The coarse, brazen texture of African mahogany sets it apart from other mahogany woods — it offers a gorgeous natural brilliance. This unique mahogany type brings an interesting and beautiful feature with it: light refraction through “cat’s eye” growth rings within the wood grain caused by naturally occurring mineral deposits in the wood.
African mahogany makes for delightful interior doors, especially in homes that allow in a lot of natural light to make those cat’s eye mineral deposits really pop. African mahogany is a good choice for exterior entryways, as it is durable, long-lasting, and accepts stains to a superior degree, thanks to the porous nature of the wood. For exterior doors, African mahogany needs to be well sealed because of its porous nature. One characteristic that sets this wood species apart for use as interior or exterior doors is its incredible resilience against wood rot. When you buy a door, transom, jambs, trim, or side lites made from African mahogany, you can rest assured it will last for years to come.
Brazilian Mahogany: Resilience to the Elements for Superior Exterior Doors
Brazilian mahogany offers great color variation, texture, and is extremely durable, making it one of the many go-to choices at ETO Doors for exterior doors and front entryways. From deep reds and browns to amber tones and more, Brazilian mahogany brings a large array of color variation with it. Its medium textured grain is straight, meaning the grains run parallel to one another, making for a beautiful pattern perfect for progressive and ultra-modern sliding and pocket doors for home interiors as well. ETO Doors uses Brazilian mahogany for numerous interior and exterior doors in single, double, and French door designs. If you do not see a door crafted from Brazilian mahogany that suits your taste within our inventory, we’ll gladly custom design and make the door or doors you want for interior or exterior use.
As an extremely strong wood species, Brazilian mahogany brings you doors that last for decades, whether used for interior or exterior purposes. It can be safety and fire rated to your specifications, or you can choose one of the doors that have already been rated at 20, 30, or 90–minute ratings. Regardless of which design you choose in Brazilian mahogany, you will love the unique grain appearance and the tremendous longevity this species brings to your home or commercial space.
Philippine Mahogany: the Umbrella Term for Superior Mahogany Woods from Southeast Asia
There are actually a large variety of wood types that fall under the general umbrella of Philippine mahogany, but they do all come from Southeast Asia. Also known as “Meranti,” all Philippine mahogany wood species share one thing in common: they’re softer than other mahogany types, like African or Brazilian mahogany, and they are all extremely popular for use indoors, cabinetry, and other home woodwork in Asia. At ETO Doors, we use Philippine mahogany for numerous exterior entryway designs, including many with glass panes, panels, wrought iron glass overlay, and wrought iron embellishments, including rustic speakeasy hardware, clavos, and more.
Philippine mahogany performs beautifully when used for interior doors as well — the color varieties and overall durability of Philippine mahogany make it an excellent choice for solid doors without windows, panes, or embellishments. If you like solid wood doors that are completely flat or those with any variety of panel types, then Philippine mahogany is a great choice for your home or commercial space.
Red and White Oak: The Difference, and What Makes Both Excellent Choices for Entryways
It may seem counterintuitive, but red and white oak are not always red or white. They are easily confused to the untrained eye, but both species offer resilience, longevity, and both species make for superior doors. Red oak is a family of oak species that includes black, Cherrybark, laurel, pin, scarlet, and willow, to name a few. All are excellent options for interior and exterior doors, as they are dense and able to handle the elements that exterior entryways are exposed to. Red oak is known for its erratic grain patterns and for being hard, and natural rosy or golden color range.
White oak includes bur, chestnut, holm, Overcup, post, and sessile, to name a few. All are exceedingly hardwoods, making for excellent exterior doors, and are used for single, double, and French entryways, transoms, trim, and side lites to match white oak doors. Among the white oak species, colors range from nearly stark white to honey-colored and other hues very similar to red oak, which is how they are so easily confused. In the most basic terms, both red and white oak are almost all wood rot-resistant, and able to stave off the swelling that occurs in exterior and interior doors with the changing of the seasons. Both red and white oaks are great wood selections for craftsman style homes, midcentury modern homes, and commercial workspaces with a traditional or progressive design style.
Teak: Super Dense, Unshakeable Resistance to Temperature, Termites, Salty Air, and More
Teak is a hardwood ranging in color from medium to golden brown, and the grain can be both straight and wavy. Generally, teak will darken over the years, not unlike a fine wine, the darkening of teak only makes it more beautiful. Teak is perhaps one of the most overlooked options for exterior doors, which is somewhat of a mystery; those who know wood can tell you: teak will resist wood rot better than any other species used for home or commercial doors and fixtures. What’s more, teak is termite-resistant, making it very desirable for those engaging in new home builds and remodels.
The natural oils in teak give it a leathery odor before being finished. Because it is incredibly strong, teak is an ideal choice for front entryways and other exterior doors — it is so hard, in fact, that it is often used to build boats and even larger ships, as its water resistance make it desirable for seafaring. What this means for teak doors is incredible longevity — when you buy teak doors for your interior or exterior entryways, you will never have to replace them.
Walnut and Spanish Walnut: Gorgeous Grain, Color, and Exceptional Strength
Walnut is a great species that offers superior stability when carved for handcrafted doors, either those ETO Doors carries as well as doors you can order to your specifications. The chocolate brown color is gorgeous, especially when walnut is oil treated before being clear-coated. Spanish walnut doors tend to range from deep to medium brown and make for an excellent choice for rustic designs. Walnut, including (and especially) Spanish walnut woods, is superior for making hand-carved double and French doors, as well as very large single doors for front entryways.
Walnut lends itself beautifully to wrought iron embellishments for a pastoral design style that works well on Spanish-style homes and commercial spaces. At ETO Doors, our large selection of Escon doors includes many walnut and Spanish walnut door models, ranging from plain, flat doors to highly intricate carvings and entryways with laminate windows, paneling, and more. As always, if the wood you want is walnut or Spanish walnut and you do not see a model in our online catalog you feel would work for your front entryway or other exterior or interior door, just let us know by calling 1-844-527-6280 to begin a dialog about creating a handcrafted door made to your specifications.
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