Bedrooms plastered - to change door frames or not?

longwalks1

renovating the 1930's semi we bought last year and having the bedroom walls skimmed, and will be replacing the skirting boards so we can lay wood flooring properly before the skirting boards. Would you change the door frames too? They're old and by looks of it have a hundred layers off off-white gloss on them, is it a big job having them off then replacing with new?

We will be replacing all the doors too

TheCyclingProgrammer

Frames or just the architraves?

We've been renovating our own 1930s semi and have had about 70% of the house skimmed. We've removed all the skirting boards and architraves downstairs and most upstairs. We left some old architraves on the landing and in hindsight I wish we had removed them. Like yours they had layers of old gloss paint on and a lead paint test was inconclusive so was worried about sanding them down.

Unless they are in really bad shape you should be fine to leave the door linings but do test for lead paint before sanding them.

I would definitely replace the architrave. It's easy to remove (should just be pinned into the frames) and easy to fit.

The only issue you might have is that the newly skimmed walls will sit proud of the door frame. If it's only 1-2mm you should have no problem fixing the architrave over this and caulking any slight gaps but any deeper, and you'll want to build the frames put to match the plaster depth with some strip wood before fixing.