Paul Carlsson didn't set out simply to make doors when he launched his latest business venture a decade ago. Rather, he aimed to create products that looked as if, though fresh from his shop, they had endured centuries—heavy, solid, and scarred by the hands of time.

Today, that Spokane venture, Crafted Northwest Doors Inc., does just that, manufacturing 20 to 40 doors a week, some of which look like they could have come from a Medieval castle, many costing thousands of dollars each, and all having been custom designed and often hand carved.

"It seemed like a good medium to create what we wanted to create," says Carlsson, who operates the business with his wife, Glenda.

Though Crafted Northwest Doors has made a name for itself making Old-World style doors, it also produces crisp, new-looking doors, as well as furniture and other home products made of wood. It employs eight people and occupies 13,000 square feet of leased space at 3604 E. Rowan in the Hillyard area.

Carlsson, a mechanical engineer by training, started the company in 1999, after having worked for Anheuser-Busch Cos., in St. Louis, and on the side operating a discount movie theater in a suburb there. Glenda Carlsson, who earlier had worked for software companies and as a computer consultant, joined the venture in 2004 and now does nearly all the custom wood carving by hand for its products.

The company once created a combination entry-door, side window, and transom system that towered 18 feet tall and cost $35,000. Other doors it has created adorn private golf clubs from Arizona to Tennessee.

The Carlssons say the company strives to put character in every door it makes.

"The magic is in the finish and the distress," the mars, nicks, and wormholes in the wood, Glenda Carlsson says. What the couple call "patina," the natural shadowing and worn-looking material left behind in the cracks and crevices, contributes to the aged look, they say.

"We also ease all of the sharp edges," Paul Carlsson says. The distress, whichis all done by hand, seems to give a door or piece of furniture a warm, comforting feeling, they say.

Inside the showroom of Crafted Northwest Doors, dozens of doors and other products are on display, representing the company's handiwork. Connected to the showroom, in the L-shaped production facility, doors progress through various phases of the manufacturing process.

The tools there range from high-tech, computerized routers, used primarily to create arches, to classic hand tools such as wood planes and chisels.

The wood chips and sawdust generated at the shop are given to farmers and ranchers north of Spokane, who till it into their soil for organic farming and use it for animal bedding. It's also given to a Spokane-area tree farmer who puts the material around his trees to keep the ground from drying and reduce the amount of water he must use. The company sets its scrap wood just outside, where it's usually taken away in a half-hour and used by nearby residents to heat their homes.

"We don't haul anything out," says Glenda Carlsson.

The company's doors are high-end. A standard-height, single-entry door manufactured by the company ranges in price from about $1,000 to $2,000. An entire "entry system," with sidelights and transom, might cost between $3,500 and $5,500, the couple says. Prices can go much higher, depending on the type of wood used, the amount of glass used, the number of panels in the design, the style ofa door's top, and the hardware added such as hinges, door knockers, and other elements such as decorative nails called "clavos," straps, and grills. A door also can have a speakeasy, an opening in the door itself, which can be put into almost any style of door.

Glenda Carlsson asserts that a door made by Crafted Northwest Doors "changes the entire look of a customer's house."

The 18-foot-tall, $35,000 entry system the company built for one Spokane-area customer frames a view of Mount Spokane, says Glenda Carlsson. Another, built for a home in Santa Barbara, Calif., was made of cedar and included three separate "rivers of glass" meandering down its seven-foot length, she says.

Though most orders are for a single door at a time, the company has done some multi-door projects, including about 50 eight-foot-high doors for one home in Santa Barbara. Each door was 2 -inches thick, had an arched top, and was made from sapele, which is in the mahogany family, the couple says.

The company manufactured 80 solid-maple doors, some with glass, for TPC (Tournament Players Clubs) Southwind, a private golf club in Memphis, Tenn., which has a PGA Tour course. The contractor on that remodeling project later had the Spokane company make doors for a new clubhouse for The Refuge, a golf club in Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

While about 80 percent of the company's revenues come from its door sales, it also makes tables, mirrors, cabinets, beds, dressers, nightstands, moldings and casings, and other wood products. It currently makes about one table a month, the couple says.

The couple says two of the advantages to buying custom-built furnitureare that itfits correctly into the living space it was designed for and gives the customer the opportunity to participate in the design.

Furniture, they contend, should reflect the individual needs and tastes of the people who use it.

They say they expect the company to boost its production volume of custom furniture, as well as of small products like wooden placemats and trays. Doing so, they say, will give the company more opportunities to demonstrateits creativity,particularly with Glenda Carlsson's custom hand carving.

Crafted Northwest Doors sells most of its doors directly to contractors and homeowners, but does sell some to dealers, the couple says.

Selling to a dealer is how the company got its start, Paul Carlsson says. He says that while he was looking for a new way to earn a living, he was introduced, through a mutual friend, to a door dealer who needed custom-made doors at an affordable price. The dealer hatched a deal that would have Carlsson making doors and the dealer marketing them.

Soon, though, making doors for the wholesale market tailed off because of competition from manufacturers in China, he says, so he changed his business plan to focus on individual homeowners and building contractors.

The company collaborates with its customers and their architects and builders to design the doors it makes. "We help them flesh out what they think they want,"he says.

Most of the company's doors are formed from knotty alder wood, but it also uses woods such as cedar, mahogany, walnut, cherry, and maple.

Knotty alder is their favorite wood to use, the Carlssons say. Alder trees are a fast-growing species and common in the Cascade Mountains, and the wood has been popular with customers, they say.

Still, Paul Carlsson says, "We'll use any kind of wood and make a stable door."

The style of door and taste of the customer determines the amount of distressed look that is applied to each a product. And because all the distress is done by hand, any combination of distress techniques can be applied to a specific piece, the couple says.

The company also makes new-looking doors, what they call their arts-and-crafts style doors, which have crisp lines, sharp edges, flat, clean panels, and a clean finish without the patina.

The company builds its doorsout ofsolid wood and uses traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery, a method used by woodworkers for thousands of years, "to ensure the integrity of the doors for years to come,"Paul Carlsson says. The joint is basically madewhen the end, or tenon, of one piece of wood is inserted into a hole, or mortise, cut in another.

The two have four children and have been living in Spokane for 11 years, an area they say they really like, which Paul Carlsson became familiar with as a Washington State University graduate.