I have a similar glu-lam beam in my house. I left it the original size (no cladding) and stained it a medium-dark color to match my trim. It looks plenty beefy.

If you can't get full-length boards, I wouldn't do it unless you plan to paint the cladding.

Thanks salex. That’s good to know. I found a place that has 16 ft long Pine Select boards. Does anyone know if that type of pine will look good? I’ll probably stain it a medium-dark color.

Stained pine can look good, but I'd recommend testing your stain first on the side that you don't plan to show. Pine can blotch and/or invert the grain pattern (light wood becomes dark because it sucks up the stain, while dark wood stays fairly light because the stain doesn't absorb into the grain as much).

If the test area comes out too dark or with too much contrast, you can use a pre-stain treatment (I use dewaxed shellac). In terms of the type of stain, I prefer gel stain on softwoods such as pine. (Actually I prefer a custom-mixed aniline dye, but that can get complicated for people who aren't wood-obsessed like me...)

That’s good info. We actually found some pretty Douglas Fir boards we may get instead. Would the staining process be similar?

Wrap it in MDF, prime and faux paint.

Yes. My glu-lam beam is actually Douglas-fir, as is most of the trim in my house. I use exactly the same staining process for Douglas-fir as for pine (except sometimes I mix the colors slightly differently, depending on the actual pieces).

Salex - do you know of a place I can get samples of stains? When we stained a door, we had to buy about 5 different stains at $10 each just to see which one looked best.

Unfortunately no. I've had to do the same: just buying the colors I thought would look good, and then testing. It's almost always cheaper though to spend $$ on stain for making your own test samples, instead of $$$ to buy more wood.

Salex - this off topic, but since you are claiming to be wood obsessed, I’m wondering if you have any idea what type of wood this vintage door is. We just stained it and were thinking of finding some vintage hardware to cover up the deadbolt hole. But now we are thinking of possibly plugging it. But we don’t know what kind of wood it is.

I can't tell from the photo - I can't see the grain on the thick parts (rails and stiles), and I'd guess the panels are probably the same species. The stain looks nice and is about like my aged Douglas-fir.

I've wrestled with the hardware-on-old-doors question. I used to try to match the hardware to the door, but now instead I match the hardware to the rest of the house (which might have gone in a different style/period direction). I learned the hard way that if you match the vintage to the door, but that is not what the rest of your house looks like, it will look out of place IMO. Victorian might be a fluted glass knob, but craftsman/arts and crafts might be a smooth black knob or handle.

Thanks. After I posted this question to you, I decided to create a new post. The people that responded seemed to think it was a fir. Here are some closer photos of the grain. My Aunt who is an interior designer suggested I keep it vintage hardware and treat it like a piece of furniture...since it is already totally different from the other doors. I’m thinking either a glass knob or possibly a porcelain knob (white or black)... with bronze hardware. As for the hole, I might just put a wood plug in it. I wish I had decided that when I was staining it.

That grain is beautiful. If you don't want to mess with a plug - which would almost certainly still be visible - you could use a hole cover. They're called different things so they're kind of hard to find, but these are similar to ones that I have used on old doors in my house (mine are dark bronze, almost black).

I would love to see a photo of a vintage door with one of those hole covers if you have one.

Here's a closeup of some Doug-fir (not true fir, which is rarely used for doors) double doors that previously had a lockset. I don't love the button in the middle, but if you look on ebay or on antique hardware sites you may find a plain rosette with no hole (or even a push plate, which was another option I considered).

Thanks for the photo! I’m surprised they haven’t come out with my styles to fill these holes... But this definitely works. I believe our door is Douglas Fir too. It was suggested to me that it was either a Hemlock Fir or Douglas Fir... I didn’t know there was something called a “True Fir”

Thanks for the info! So Douglas Fir is a good choice I guess. This vintage door is very like DF and we will do our beams with with new DF. We also had a new vanity made from reclaimed DF (and a kitchen table awhile back). I know nothing about it but it just so happens I keep stumbling across this wood.

*likely

I’m not a wood expert so I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at but I know it’s wood lol and it’s 16 feet long and 6” deep. Found this pretty quick on google so I’d venture to say there are more options out there