Door replacement has gone high tech

Replacing a home’s interior doors has always made a big difference in the look of a house.

Until recently, the mess and expense involved served as a deterrent to making that change. Doors had to be cut, planed and then painted on site. It has been a time-consuming and messy process.

However, that is no longer the case, said Dan Teuscher, owner of HomeStory Chicago, based in Elk Grove Village. Today homeowners can get the considerable benefits of updating their homes with new interior doors with almost no hassle, thanks to major advances in technology.

“I am a door snob,” Teuscher admits. “I always notice people’s doors and really feel they make a big difference to the look of a home. Many of the homes built in the 1960s and 1970s have very boring, uninteresting doors.”

He said changing them out makes such a big difference and now you can do it easily and affordably.

Prices for an installed hollow core door start as low as $199. Solid core doors start at $259. Hardware is not included in the prices.

HomeStory’s door-measuring technology generates custom replacement doors by taking precise digital measurements and capturing the geometry of the existing door frame. Using those measurements, new doors are custom made on an automated door machine and then painted, all in the factory rather than in a customer’s house.

These custom-fitting doors install in minutes, close properly, prevent drafts and make the home more energy efficient.

Doors can shift over time as a house settles. Fixing the ill-fitting doors once involved planing down the existing wood and then repainting the door on site, Teuscher said. People also ran into problems when they replaced carpeting with hardwood floors, leaving them with large gaps at the bottoms of their doors. HomeStory can also painlessly correct these issues.

“No one else is doing this. We are taking a home renovation that used to take lots of time and involved hiring a contractor, and we are transforming it into something that only takes a couple of hours or days, depending on the number of doors involved,” Teuscher said. “And since the doors are painted in the factory, you won’t see any brush or roller marks and installation is seamless.”

HomeStory doors for the Chicago market, the majority of which are solid core doors made of medium-density fiberboard (MDF), are made in Iowa. MDF is more durable than wood, Teuscher said. Wood doors and hollow core doors are also available.

“While we offer a variety of paint colors and stain finishes, most people today seem to want white doors and white trim. Mirrored doors in which the mirrors are inlaid into the door, not just attached to it, are also very popular, especially for closets. Our doors can also be installed as sliders, not just on hinges,” he said.

Teuscher, a former options exchange trader, is the son of a downstate contractor. So he has always been intrigued by hands-on work. That is what convinced him to invest in a franchise of the California-based company. HomeStory Chicago, Teuscher’s franchise, began offering the service in the North and Northwest suburbs in early June, hiring experienced local carpenters to do the installation work. he said it’s been growing by leaps and bounds ever since.

All HomeStory franchises are locally-owned and operated. For more information, visit www.HomeStoryChicago.com or call (847) 258-3417.