Vintage Wooden Shophouse Door

Old shophouses in the past used to have these retro wooden window doors back then. You can see them commonly in old towns like Ipoh, Taiping, Penang and many more places across Malaysia. Some of the doors you seen in older shophouses are originally made in the 1940s or older. These doors are made from extremely hard teakwood where they can't be eaten or infested with termites easily. These woods are very strong and heavy too, that's why they are good building materials in the past.



These doors belong to my grandma's old shophouse located in Johor, Malaysia which are one of the original ones where only a few of these doors remain there in the neighboring hood. It was specially handcrafted and built by my great grandfather back in the early 1950s. In the past, it is vert common for household males to self-make their own furniture like cupboard, door, table and chair for the whole family. They do it to safe cost and also to sell them for extra income



My great grandfather was a talented gentleman with many carpenter skills which he learned from his friends during his younger days when he first started his charcoal business. He passed his knowledge and taught his son, who is my grandfather about carpenter works and guide him throughout the whole process. There are also many other things which my great grandfather and grandfather had made back then such as tables, chairs and many more to be listed here.



Behind these doors are grills which are made from teakwood. Some shophouses have wood grills installed at half of the door's height whereas some have being installed at full door height. This photo that you see above is taken at my mum's old room, where she live there for more than 30 years before staying with my dad. My mum recall many wonderful memories about these door and one of them is watching fireworks and firecrackers played during Chinese New Year.



Wondering about the nasty mosquitoes ?? Well in the past, my grandmother sew this cloth covering the whole entire door to prevent mosquitoes on insects from coming in.



This door belongs to my great grandmother's room


As the time goes by, these doors become weaker and began to fall apart as the nails and screw had become rusty and slowly breaks apart. Vintage doors are hard to maintain as parts like the screws and nails are difficult to find too as most of them are extra large size.



My advice, if you want to maintain an old school door, you may need to change the screw and nails like every 20 years and stock up those screw and nails.

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