Folding doors - room divider

[gasman]

I need to find / make some folding doors to go into into a 2 metre wide opening between 2 rooms. On the web I found these http://www.oldpinecompany.co.uk/acatalog/Made-To-Measure-Shutters.html which look lovely - just what I wanted. However they are GBP900+VAT which seems silly to pay over a grand for what it would be fairly straightforward to make.
So... can I ask some advice? First, can I use bog-standard softwood pine or would I do better to get some pitch pine? Second, the doors need to match the rest of the pine in the house - so once they are finished can I just take them down to the local caustic soda dipping place and get them to dip them, then rub down, remove all the old white residue and wax them?
Thanks for the advice
Gasman

 

[AndyT]

If you want them to look like other stripped woodwork, I think you need to use old wood which has been painted. 19th century joinery was mostly redwood (species not colour) imported from the Baltic; what is sold as 'pine' or 'softwood' is nothing like it.

I'd have thought the most practical approach if you can't find a folding pair would be to follow the example of the company you found - buy some similar old doors and adapt them.

You may be lucky if you look out for loft conversions - fire regs sometimes mean people having to replace all their doors with fire-rated ones and there is still some good stuff being tossed away.

Andy