We had an ugly metal clad solid wood exterior door that leads from a basement family room into our below grade garage. I had redone the floor and trim in the family room and was looking for a way to fancy up the door without having to spend a fortune.
Original door
Took the door off and cleaned it up
Cut 1/2 MDF to size to give the apperance of a 5 panel door
Glued on the panels, and filled and sanded all the edges. Chamfered edges
Primed
Paint added
Rehung- the MDF made an already thick door significantly thicker so I had to spend quite some time finding hardware that would work.
It’s been 4 years since this was installed and it’s held up perfect. I was worried about the MDF getting dinged, but it has not.
There is a slight chamfer on the edges that I put on with a hand plane. With MDF I knew I didn’t want hard edges since the can get dingged pretty easy. It’s held up well so far.