I used Trustile doors in my last place. Maybe things have changed since Marvin bought them, because they were not a Marvin company and I see that the website has changed. but the doors were custom and I had the ability to specify width, height, and style and rail width within certain parameters and sticking style for the panels.

I was able to specify width and height in 1/8" of inches. But each door was closer to $1000, 17 years ago. The site Still appears to allow specific dimensions.

https://truquote.trustile.com/DoorDesignTool2/DoorDesign?_ga=2.121499080.1344692300.1681488025-1466481957.1681488025

There are two issues here:

1. How did they screw up the measurements for a custom door order and

2. Did you sign off on the order before they placed it?

If you signed off on the order, I'm afraid there's not much that can be done now. I'd either sell the doors you got in the wrong sizes or donate them to Habitat Re-Store (or similar) and take the write off.

Order the correct sized doors. Talk to your contractor about going halvsies on the cost since they didn't measure correctly the first time. And don't order standard sizes because the door openings are not standard. The other option would be to reframe all the door openings to a standard 30" opening, but that would likely cost more in labor and materials than buying custom sized doors.

" They said TruStile comes in 28" and 30". "

TruStile is fully custom and every door sized and made to order. He is feeding you a line to cover his a**.

The door frames cannot be resized because they are metal frames that are 4 sided and run under the floor.

I don't think they messed up the measurements. I think they knew it is a 29.5" opening and their choice was to get a 28" door and build it out 1.5" instead of ordering a 30" door and shaving it down .25" on each side because they don't have the machinery to do that well.

I guess my question is: Is it just as reasonable to add width to a door in the fashion that they did as it is to have ordered larger and shaved down?

In the end it seems their idea of custom was to order stock and jimmy it rather than to order a custom sized door. I thought that a custom side door would be made a custom size by the manufacturer.

I agree this is a screw up with the order and if you signed it it is your $$$. IMO you would be better off to redo the framing and get prehung doors .

This may not be of major concern but stile and rail size are usually consistent between doors of similar sizes and it is the panel width that changes between wider and narrower doors. Neither option,either adding on, or shaving off of the stiles is correct, particularly for a custom door. That's what you do to a cheap door from Home Depot, not what you do to a custom door. Show them link I posted where it clearly shows the measurements are in fractions of inches.

Exactly. They just took your normal 3 1/2" (or whatever stile size you chose) and added to it. So you lose the consistency in stile width across the home if that matters to you. The added on piece will now be the weak link and the hinges, and knob will be thru it and that part will be hitting the door stops on both sides.

@palimpsest You are totally correct.

I just spoke with the lumber dealer who ordered this and they told me TruStyle are totally custom doors. If the opening is 29.5" they will make a 29.5" door. My contractor is just making stuff up that you have to get a 28" or 30" door.

The lumber guys said I depended on my contractor to take the correct measurements of the door and create a quote based on those measurements. I was signing off on the look of the door. It should not be up to the customer to remeasure every dimension to see that it is correct, especially if it is being made custom.

I believe his thinking is correct about this. I signed off on a drawing of what I thought the porportions and aesthetic of the door were. I didn't measure all of the door openings and see that they were correct - same as I didn't measure every other aspect of my apartment to make sure their measurements were correct. I trusted them to measure accurately.

Bottomline, I want a new custom door. I'll have to duke it out with them about who is paying what for it. In the end of the way I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to pay for someone else's mistake if it means making wrapping up this job smoothly.

What I cannot stand is someone F'ing laying to my face. Jesus!

Thanks all for the therapy and reality check about TruStyle.

PS @Patricia Colwell Consulting - Prewar Manhattan building, original 4 sided metal door frame, plaster walls, olive knuckle joints: widening is a whole can of worms and much more expensive than cutting drywall and throwing in a new frame with prehung.

I think there may be some default settings on the Trustile site because my doors were ordered with a standard ogee sticking and lock rail width (the middle one where the knob goes) and they looked just like any Jeld-Wen 6 panel doors (although they would have been nicer if you notice that sort of thing).

This was clearly Not what I had specified and I had written documentation of this and the contractor said "But they are already in production!" and I said "Why on earth would I order a custom door that looked like something from Home Depot? I specified custom doors to the proportions of the 1840 doors in my house. You placed the order incorrectly, and I didn't approve it."

"Okay we will see if they can stop the order and work you up a new quote for the correct doors"

Well, magically the the new quote was Twice what it had been for the other doors. They were trying to get me to pay for both sets of doors rather than eat their mistake.

I said "Yeah, I will supply the doors" I am not paying that much for those doors" and I ordered them through a different vendor. Since I was time and materials I was no contractually obligated to buy only through them..

2. "Just reframing doors to a different size".

I moved into a house with 28" bedroom doors and 24" bathroom doors. I decided to widen the door openings since I was renovating anyway. Every door had a light switch next to it, one had two, one on each side, and none of them had enough wire to just be moved over the extra inches, all of it needed to be rewired because you can't just splice in the wall and cover it up. There is never just doing something and it is usually it turns out to be the more expensive option even though it may not seem it. Reframing openings rather than getting the right door is the tail wagging the dog.

I'd just hold your ground and tell them that this isn't an acceptable solution and you're willing to wait for the correctly sized door. Their error, they pay. The whole point of buying a custom door is so that you don't have to do things like this.

“It should not be up to the customer to remeasure every dimension to see that it is correct, especially if it is being made custom. “ EXACTLY. Every time I see that stated here, I die a little inside.

"There is never just doing something and it is usually it turns out to be the more expensive option even though it may not seem it. "

Amen to that. Plus, this particular door location can't be widened because on one side of the door is the outside apartment hallway and the other direction is two other doorways at 90 angles to this one.

I don't think they messed up the measurements. I think they knew it is a 29.5" opening and their choice was to get a 28" door and build it out 1.5" instead of ordering a 30" door and shaving it down .25" on each side because they don't have the machinery to do that well.

They need to pay. And I'd want to know why he lied to you.

He lied because he f’ed up. It is incredible how fast contractors can spin a trail, with a straight face, and think Im not going to eventually see through. The thing is, when I see through, I still have to be nice and polite about it so they don’t walk off and leave me hanging.

It's really quite something how much power a remodeling -type contractor has over the client in the current environment. Show up or not show up, finish or not finish, walk away at any point.

I have been working with a contractor for 9 plus years. His work is excellent compared to what is standard. He can manage about a good 40 hours worth of work in a month. Comes when he wants, doesn't when he doesn't want to, an hour a day or nine, whatever he wants. He has basically said "This is what I am capable of doing, I would completely understand if you wanted to find someone else because I know this is taking way too long"

That's all well and good, but once a project has been started, the possibilities of getting someone else who's any good at all to "take over" is virtually nil.

He at least is a very good craftsman and a nice guy. But you can have almost the same experience with a mediocre or lousy contractor.

The whole industry baffles me and I create stories in my mind about these guys and their personal lives. They all seem like they've been on the bottle at some point, or currently, and their partner makes them sleep on the couch or in their truck many nights a week. They could be financially stable because of their skills and the demand for their skills, but they can't keep it together, maybe have a bit of ADHD and end up pulling lies out of thin air to compensate for their mistakes. And, they are so good at it because they do it regularly with all of the people they disappoint in their personal lives as well. Somewhere in there is an adult daughter from way back who doesn't talk to him.

The alternative is the super responsible straight family man with a wife, kids, house in the suburbs, and when he goes out on jobs every day he is having affairs with other married men and doing a little coke on the side. Something has to give so it ends up being his work because he is too guilty to not be dedicated to his family.

Do you see how crazy these people make me that I have to find humor in the situation so I don't go bonkers?

Its getting really sad. Any carpenter that is any good is in high demand, and the contractor that had a great one yesterday, loses them today because they can make $2 more per hour with the next guy.

I learned long ago; ”Do as much for yourself as you can”

Contractors are supposed to be the miricle cure for homes, but they are only as good as their crew. Then add in communication. With a contractor working on YOUR house, you have to convey what you want to the owner, he has to fully understand what you want, then his crew has to carry out his instructions. The chances of that are about 100 to 1. Then add in contractors who are looking gor the lowest cost and easy way out for the most money. and its a triple whammy for the homeowner.

IF a homeowner has the skill set they actually have a better chance of getting it right because they already know what they want; they can picture it.

But that is not what most people say, ” hire a contractor”, is the mantra, but most homeowners have the skill set and drive, they just need encouragement. Its just a house, people have been doing it themselves for 9000 years. So what if it is not perfect the first time; adapt adapt, overcome and refine until it is.

Its your home; why pay a lot of money to a contractor to screw it up?

The ”no tools to mske a straight cut“ is nonsense. With a long board, two clamps, and a skillsaw, a straight cut could easily be made.

"With a contractor working on YOUR house, you have to convey what you want to the owner, he has to fully understand what you want, then his crew has to carry out his instructions. The chances of that are about 100 to 1."

Yes! I can see the train wrecks of miscommunication happening in slow motion from 100 miles away. I printed up the color schedule and posted it in each room. Did it help? No. There are so many moving parts on every job you have to be organized for it to all work out and there seem to be few type A's in this game.

@Travis Johnson I do think you are way over estimating people like myself and my husband and our ability to do construction work. Also, we already have jobs that require 40 - 80 hours a week depending on the week. We don't also want a second job of becoming a contractor. Lastly, we live in a coop building where you have to be a licesnsed contractor with $1 million in insurance to be able to do anything more than hang pictures and paint the walls. None the less, I completely admire your gusto and ability to take on home challenges yourself.

@Kendrah

That is too bad. Most places that I know of allow a homeowner to work on their own place. I think that is fair because the homeowner is paying the property taxes so not do as they see fit? They are the ones that have to live with the results. And later, when the house sells, then it has to pass inspection so there is accountability in the end.

You sound like you are in a different situation, and to be honest my reply was in encouraging homeowners everywhere and not directed at your individually, but it just saddens me that today the first thing people are told is that "they cannot do it". I am sure people thought that about me when I was 18 years old, getting married and needed a house. Oh my, my tools were limited, my skills rough, and my workmanship poor, but I refined things over the years, and so can most homeowners. They just need to be encouraged. It's not as easy as they show on the television shows granted, but there is a sense of accomplishment in adapting and perseverance.

But I do understand having time restraints. I work in an industry that is 24/7/365 with lives at stake if I don't do my job, so I am on-call 24/7/365. Last week was a 66 hour week, so I am more sympathetic than you might assume. At the end of the year though, I always look back and marvel at what I have accomplished.

A lot of it is my personality I know, where I like to do my own thing and just be left alone, but there is no way I could live in certain places, mostly because I cannot figure out why anyone one would want to live with so many rules and laws where ironically, they cannot live. I mean sure you can live there, but are you truly living if you have to get permission to do every little thing?

@Travis Johnson Your jobs sounds important and impactful. Thanks for whatever it is that you do.

"I mean sure you can live there, but are you truly living if you have to get permission to do every little thing?" Oh yes! I'm truly living. I'm in Manhattan, have my own garden, incredible neighbors, a stunning view of nature out every window plus a skyline view, have walkability and public transportation, and a sun-filled beautiful apartment. Asking permission to do construction doesn't cramp my style at all.

I'm in a coop apartment building. Technically I'm not paying taxes on my property. Rather, my neighbors and I collectively pay taxes for our entire property. We also live with the consequences of each other's construction. If they incorrectly DIY'd a shower, it would leak into my apartment. I'm glad we are all required required to hire licensed contractors do work on our apartments.

Though I still boast about fixing my washer and oven during the pandemic, I ultimately feel more pride and life long satisfaction from my career accomplishments. I'm very lucky to have a job I love and to be able to afford to hire contractors so on the weekends I can walk in the woods with my dog, go to the museum, and read in the park.

Everyone has different values around DIY-ing and home renovation pride. I grew up watching my dad fix everything and it makes me want to better understand how things work. My husband's family that hired people to do things for them and he doesn't know or care about how things work. I know people who will rent for the rest of their lives because they don't want to be responsible for any kind of home upkeep. You've just gotta do what works for you!

"I mean sure you can live there, but are you truly living if you have to get permission to do every little thing?

This literally describes a million some people in this country living in urban co-op settings which may be their only option for any form of ownership and equity rather than being subject to the financial vagaries of renting.

I think if someone turned around and said that people only live out in rural areas with no particular zoning just so they could keep a bunch of junked cars, or that you're not truly living because there is no art museum or 1000 restaurants, you would understand that this is not a true statement, so why would you say what you said about the co-op situation?

Travis:

I'm all for DIYing and I've helped many do it here for a decade or so, however, I've made it a point to classify into Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced. It is critical that DIYers are able to accurately introspect to find their proper catagory with just a splash of biting off a bit more than they can chew so they may learn and progress upward.

Yesterday I sold a countertop reinforcement rod repair. The homeowner had contaminated the crack with epoxy. His seeming common sense inexpensive solution has made my job much more difficult; I've got to get that crap and his rod out of there and I have to charge for that. He didn't know what he didn't know.

I think it is interesting just how little we can all fathom each other’s living situations. My parents moved to the god forsaken suburbs for a while. Not only were they forced to stop making fun of suburbanites, but they had a HOA, which they referred to as the itty bitty architectural committee. The HOA made rules such as no hanging laundry out to dry, no political signs in yards, and a bunch of other aesthetic rubbish. No matter how hard I tried, though I didnt try all that hard, I could not get what would possess them to live in a place like this. I used to make fun of their Stepford community and call it the projects until my grandma gave me a stern talking to. After 20 years they moved back into the city and live in a coop.

My husband would give up tons of freedoms to continue to be able to walk down the hall to the garbage chute in his slippers at 2 AM to dump the trash instead of hauling cans to the curb on a designated night of the week.

Just as in a coop, when we lived in a condo, we had to run everything by the building management and our contractor also needed a 1 mil policy. The rules in a condo or coop are there to protect everyone from DIY'ers and GC's who don't know what they're doing. They are also there so as to disturb the other residents as little as possible.

@cpartist . We and our contractor had to sign a 40-page alteration agreement prior to beginning work. It was very detailed - brass valves, sealing up opened walls to prevent pests, can only put "wet over wet" so nobody is building a bathroom above someone else's dining room. Everything on the agreement made a whole lot of sense to me. I was glad to sign it knowing that my neighbors also are doing so too. And, it is nice to be able to hold my contractors to the standards and know that they are not using cheap plumbing parts. Our super had to come and inspect to see they have done it right.

Also, a $1M insurance policy from contractors, and ever so nicely, construction only between 9-5 Monday - Friday. It is really nice on weekends having peace and quiet! I remember living in houses where a neighbor would start building a deck at 7 AM. Ugh.

@Kendrah - That 40 page alteration agreement didn't stop your GC from cutting corners, lying about his mistake and trying to cover up his mistake.

Regardless of where you live or if you are doing the work yourself or hiring someone to do work for you, it is up to you to learn everything you can about every aspect of the job so that you are not ripped off or cheated and don't end up with shoddy work.

I just had Verizon Fios connected to my home. Two guys came out to do the free install. The younger guy explained to me that the best way to do this would be to install the router in my garage and use a relay in the middle of my house to ensure wi-fi coverage of the whole home. The downside would be that this solution would cost me an extra $10.00 a month for the relay rental.

I am female and over 60, and this young man treated me like booboo the fool while he explained how all this stuff works and why this was the optimal solution. I let him go on for 10 - 15 minutes and then told him that I happen to be a CCNE (Cisco Certified Network Engineer). I then told him exactly how he was going to do his job and why my solution was the optimal solution. I also explained that I knew he didn't want to have to run ethernet though the crawl space and was too lazy to even look at what was already done. I have Cat5e lines from the garage to the office and all he needed to do was plug the damn thing into the wall and I wouldn't need a relay.

When I had a plumber come to my home to change some of the plumbing for my bathroom I told the guy to leave the copper pipe that he removed. He told me that was new pipe that he brought into my home. I had pictures of my plumbing before and after - he took out the copper pipe and replaced it with PEX. But again, a 60 year old woman wouldn't know these things. I let him take the pipe, but I will never have him in my home again. He is a thief.

When I needed to replace my sliding glass door I had several contractors try to sell me crap doors that they insisted were top of the line. I got advice here on Houzz from the pros who told me what brands to look for and what to avoid. I read reviews and educated myself. When I finally found the door I wanted and found a GC who would install the door he came out, measured and sent me the estimate and door specs to sign off on prior to ordering. I have two sliding glass doors that lead to my patio - one from my sitting room off the master and a 10' double slider from my living room. Both are Anderson doors. He hadn't looked at the other door, picked a different color and different style handles than the other door. WTF - wouldn't we want the two doors to match? His crew did a fine job with the installation and I am happy, but a GC is not a designer and if I didn't catch the error I would have mismatched doors.

This is all in the past year. If I go back 5 years I could probably write a novel on the things that professionals did that were lazy, deceitful, wrong . . .

The worst mistake by a professional that I have ever experienced was when a Doctor at Urgent Care misdiagnosed me having a heart attack as the flu.

It was flu season, but I had a flu shot and tested negative for the flu. I had bilateral arm pain, cold sweats, felt exhausted and weak, was having difficulty breathing and bouts of nausea.

The Urgent Care doctor probably saw 30 other patients with the flu that day. He assumed the flu. He prescribed anti virals and meds to make me more comfortable and told me to follow up with my PCP.

Over the next 5 weeks I was seen by 3 other doctors, including 3 visits with my PCP, one visit with another PCP at the same office as my PCP and a Rheumatologist. I kept going back with the same symptoms.

After that initial diagnosis I was told over and over that as we age it takes more time to recover and how hard it can be to recover from the flu. The PCP finally sent me to a Rheumatologist because I kept complaining about my arms aching. She diagnosed me with tendonitis which she told me was an after effect of a bad bout of the flu. It was midnight the same night as my visit with the Rheumatologist when I woke up with my arms feeling like they were on fire, again having cold sweats and nausea, but this time I knew something was really wrong. I called 911 - they sent an ambulance and I had a major heart attack while being transported to the hospital. After having a stent implanted the cardiologist explained how lucky I was (99% block of the widow maker) and that tests indicated that I had had multiple silent heart attacks prior to the major event.

They weren't silent, they were misdiagnosed. A professional made a diagnosis and everyone else followed suit without questioning if that initial diagnosis was right. I didn't feel competent to question a doctor, but honestly, my gut was telling me from the first Urgent Care visit that this was not the flu.

If we don't advocate for ourselves, educate ourselves and demand that things be done right we may end up with shoddy work in our homes or dead.