Door upholstery: wooden, metal, leatherette, vinyl leather

The easiest and most popular way to give the door an attractive appearance is to upholster it with some kind of material. This can be done both from the premises and from the outside, you just have to use different materials and different technologies. But in any case, the process is called “door upholstery.” About all the subtleties and nuances – below. 

How can you beat the door

There are two types of door upholstery – soft and hard. Soft is made from two materials – leatherette (leatherette) and vinyl leather. Leatherette is a woven cotton base coated with a film of nitrocellulose. This material was popular in the 40-60s of the last century, as it was practical and inexpensive. A little later, vinyl artificial leather appeared.

A little bit about vinyl leather and leatherette

This material is made on different bases – woven and non-woven, stretching and not. Accordingly, artificial leather has different properties. A layer of polyvinyl chloride (PVC or PVC) is applied to the base. It is more durable, chemically neutral. It has only one significant drawback – it reacts poorly to ultraviolet rays – it loses elasticity, changes color, and may crack. Therefore, the upholstery of doors that go directly to the street is undesirable with vinyl leather. There is, however, a material with increased resistance to UV rays, but this is a special material and you should pay attention to this when buying.

Now about a little confusion in terminology. Dermantine in its pure form, as it was in the last century, has not been produced for quite a long time. Instead, there are different types of vinyl faux leather. There are also materials coated with other polymers, but not so many. Here they are, according to old memory, and are called dermantin or leatherette (although it is correct, by the way, to say “dermatin” without “n”). So seeing this name, it is necessary to clarify what kind of material is meant, since the properties and prices differ significantly.

Despite the fact that the material is essentially the same, it has different characteristics and appearance. There are elastic types that stretch well, there are hard ones that are difficult to stretch. In addition, modern artificial leather has many colors and shades, it can have a different surface structure:

• smooth – shiny and matte, there is even a metallic effect;
• porous;
• structured, imitating different types of skin (snake, crocodile, etc.).
  

So the choice of soft upholstery materials for the door is extensive. Apparently, this is the determining factor in the popularity of this type of door upholstery.

Rigid upholstery for the door

There are more hard upholstery materials for doors, although they are used less often:

• MDF panels with a thickness of 8 mm to 18 mm;
• natural wood – fragments, solid wood;
• veneer;
• laminate;
• plastic;
• postforming.

From this list, most often the doors are trimmed with MDF overlays / panels. Such upholstery is especially popular for decorating metal doors, including home-made ones. The panels are made according to the dimensions of a particular door leaf, after which they are installed on glue or mounting foam in fixed starting strips. In this case, it makes sense to make slopes from MDF.

In practice, the door trim is also covered with other materials – laminate, plastic, postforming. Starting profiles are installed along the perimeter of the door, into which fragments of trim trimmed “to size” are inserted. Everything is simple, if you have basic skills in working with a drill, saw and hammer, you can do it yourself in a few hours.

Door upholstery with dermantine

The most popular way to trim a door is with artificial leather. Such a department allows, simultaneously with improving the appearance, to increase the indicators of heat and sound insulation. But this type of door upholstery also has disadvantages – this is the most complex technological process that requires at least general ideas about the procedure.

Upholstery methods

We will talk about the technology of upholstery of doors with dermantine. You can attach it in two ways: with a roller around the perimeter of the door leaf and without it. Depending on this, the order of actions changes (more on that later).

Further, a geometric pattern can be formed on the surface of the upholstery using nails and constrictions. Several options in the photo below.

For banners, you can use the same material that upholstered the doors. It is cut into strips 2,5-3 cm wide, attached to the upper nails, and then pulled and fixed by the next nails, a pattern is formed. To secure the strip, it can be wrapped around a nail that is not completely driven in, which is then hammered. But this option is suitable if the decorative nails have large hats. If the hats are small, the strips are nailed.

Also, a pattern can be formed using a thin metal flexible cable, but it is more difficult to fix it – it bends worse.

How and how to attach leatherette to the door leaf

If upholstery of a wooden door is necessary, there are usually no questions – they are fastened with staples from a stapler, then nailed along the contour with decorative nails. Only here there are nuances: the staples should be with a wide back (at least 1 mm), and the nails should be wallpaper, with a wide hat. Fastener installation step – from 2,5 to 7 cm, as desired.

More questions arise when it is necessary to cover an iron door with leatherette. There is only one way out – to put on glue. Glue is usually used “Moment”, but you can use any other universal glue that can be used to glue both metal and leatherette. They lubricate the flashing from the inside (a bar that goes along the perimeter of the door and closes the junction of the canvas with the door frame). When fixing vinyl artificial leather, it is cut out with a margin of 15 cm, just for the hem from both sides to the wrong side.

Materials for heat and noise insulation

Most often, foam rubber is used to insulate the door. It is inexpensive, if desired, allows you to form a three-dimensional convex pattern. The most common case is two layers of foam rubber 1 cm each. This option is not the best – foam rubber has almost no effect on the soundproof properties of the door, and this is sometimes very important. In addition, after 3-4 years, it loses elasticity, begins to stick together, you have to re-upholster the door, although the appearance of the leatherette is still quite decent.

All this is true, but there are no worthy competitors for foam rubber yet. There are materials with certain properties that can be laid instead of one of the layers, and the second one will still be foam rubber. For example, to improve the soundproofing properties, you can use “Isoton”. It is used for heat and sound insulation of cars. Sold in small sheets, the back side is coated with an adhesive, protected by a plastic film. So there will be no problems with installation. Of the minuses – the price and the rather large weight of the material. To avoid problems, it is worth replacing the loops with more powerful ones.

There are two other materials used in the automotive industry with similar properties. These are “Splen” and “Vibrofilter”. All of them are made on an adhesive basis, can be used to improve the characteristics of the door.

How to beat a wooden door

It is more convenient to work on the removed door, but if this is a problem, you can upholster it right on the spot. First you need to remove all fittings from the door leaf – locks, latches, door peephole. If there is old upholstery, it is carefully removed. If a part of the door needs repair, the damaged fragments are removed and replaced with cut-to-size wooden ones. Slots can be covered with putty or foamed with mounting foam with a low coefficient of expansion.

If there was a pattern on the upholstery, and in principle it suits you, we drive ordinary nails into the places where the nails forming the pattern were driven in. We do not hammer them to the end, the hats should stick out by 1-1,5 cm. With their help, we will then break through the foam rubber and upholstery in the right places (just press with your fingers, all layers will push through). We will pull out ordinary nails, install decorative ones in their place, and with the help of tape we will form a pattern. The procedure is simple.

with roller

To make the end of the door look no worse than the rest of the plane, we start with it. If you are not going to finish one of the sides, skip this step, just paint the end with paint to match the finish on one or the other side. If we upholster the doors on both sides, we cut out a strip of material about 10 cm wide. More precisely, look at your door, since the thickness of the canvas is different. The strip should cover the end and go to one and the other side by 3-4 cm. Lay the strip, fasten along the edge with staples from a stapler (faster and easier) or nails with a large flat head.

To form a roller, a strip of material is also needed. Width – 10-15 cm, depending on how wide you want the roller. Next, there are two options:

• Immediately form a roller. To do this, a tourniquet of foam rubber or batting is laid in the middle of the strip, crimped in the middle. In this form, it is fixed around the perimeter of the door. After, from above, foam rubber and material are laid. To form a neat edge, the material is tucked inward.
  

• The roller is formed later, after the vinyl is laid on the canvas. Here the technology is different – the strip is attached around the perimeter, face down. Then foam rubber and upholstery are attached. The edges are not tucked, just cut to size. After the end, the strip is wrapped on the front side (you can put a strip of foam rubber into it), folded over and fastened with wallpaper nails.
  

The difference between these two methods is only in appearance: in the first case, the nails are nailed along the edge of the upholstery (in the photo on the right), in the second – along the edge of the roller (in the photo on the left). Choose whichever you like best. For example, it seems to me that the first option (on the right) looks better – more neat. But this is just a personal opinion.

What is this roller for? In order to cover possible gaps between the canvas and the jamb. Thus, we avoid the appearance of drafts and reduce heat loss. But you can make a roller only if the doors are upholstered from the opening side (the doors open into the apartment, so we upholster them from the inside). If, on the other hand, this focus does not pass, it will not close. Then you have to do without a roller.

Without roller

In this case, everything is simple: the canvas is tucked evenly, fixed with nails or staples – as it suits you best.

Door upholstery process in photo format

To reduce the noise level, the doors are upholstered with one layer of sound insulation and one layer of foam rubber. The option with preliminary production of the roller is chosen. First, they removed the old fittings, cut in a new lock. The lining and handle were removed, the internal parts remained in place. Let’s move on to the door trim.

We immediately form a roller – we put narrow foam rubber in a strip of leatherette, fasten it along the perimeter of the door. It is more convenient to do this with staples from a stapler.

The next step is to fix the soundproofing. It is on an adhesive basis, so there are no problems – they cut it to size, carefully removing the film and glued it. When gluing, we try to squeeze out all the air, for this we tear off the film gradually, ironing the material from edge to edge.

Now we fix foam rubber 1 cm thick. In this embodiment, the most convenient way is staples from a construction stapler. First, we fasten along the perimeter, then often – along the surface of the door, so that the foam rubber fits snugly.

The foam rubber is cut out with a small margin, after installation, the excess is cut off.

Next, attach the upholstery. It is cut out 15 cm more in length and width. This stock will go to the folds to form a neat edge.

We tuck the upper edge by 2-3 cm, we begin to fasten from the upper left corner. There we hammer in the first nail, then we straighten the material and nail the second one at the top right. Then, in increments of 3-4 cm, we nail the upholstery from one edge to the other with finishing nails.

We fasten from the side of the loops, tucking the edge inward. Straighten evenly so that there are no creases at the top.

After the same operation is repeated from the side of the castle, then below. Actually, the upholstery of the doors is almost finished, it is only necessary to install the fittings in place.

Video tutorials on the topic

Vinyl leather for door upholstery is sold both by the meter and in sets. In some sets, the mounting method may be different: they have plastic profiles that are attached around the perimeter of the door leaf. These profiles have a fixation system similar to the one used in stretch ceilings.

The following video captures the process using roll material.

How to insulate and upholster the front door. The technique of forming a roller of the second type – it is nailed last.

How to upholster metal doors

The front part of metal doors is rarely upholstered – it already has a very attractive appearance. The inner part suffers more often. That’s what we’ll talk about.

On the inside of the iron door there is a frame. In some models it is metal, in others it is wooden. Thermal insulation material is laid between the slats of the frame. It can be foam or mineral wool boards. They are attached to mounting foam, which has a very small coefficient of expansion (mandatory!). From above, everything is closed with a sheet of plywood or OSB. This is the standard option. If the planks are wooden, everything is fine, there are no problems – the doors will not freeze through. But if the frame inside the door is metal, in good frosts everything will freeze through – through cold bridges, which are metal ribs. To prevent this from happening, a layer of “Isoton” or “Splen” is again laid on top of the foam / mineral wool, and plywood is already on them.

The remaining processes for upholstery of a metal door are very similar to those described above. All the difference is in the method of fixation: the upholstery is glued to a suitable high-quality glue. The excess is immediately cut off at the junction using a sharp wallpaper knife.

This is where the classic mistake was made – there is no layer that cuts off the bridges of cold. Everything else is shown well.