• Wooden door styles are defined by their use of panels and glass.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Styles of wooden doors are differentiated by the details. Unless you're a Hobbit, chances are your doorway is rectangular. Thus, most wooden doors begin with the same basic shape. In addition to having a common shape, wooden doors are made from the same handful of woods, such as cherry, oak, maple, ash, cedar and pine. The types, sizes and number of panels or inlaid features, such as windows, serve to differentiate wooden door styles.
  
  

Square Panels

• Doors with square panels come in a number of styles. The names of these styles are contingent upon the company that produces the doors as each has concocted a different system of nomenclature for branding purposes. Square or rectangular panels can be arranged in any pattern that will fit within the confines of a wooden door. Long vertical panels are oriented parallel to one another running the length of the door on some styles. Other designs place a number of small squares atop and beside one another or alternate large and small panels. Doors with square panels were common in colonial America and can be seen at historical sites such as Williamsburg.
  
  

Round Panels

• Wooden doors with rounded panels apply the same principles as those with square panels, fitting inlaid or raised panels in a number of patters on the surface of the door. Rounded panels assume a number of forms. They can be rectangular with a rounded top, adorned with half-arcs or be completely round. Completely rounded panels are more frequently oval than circular as the elongated form of the oval is more congruous with the rectangular form of a door than would be a circle. Some ornate wooden door styles combine rounded panels with square panels in complex patterns.
  
  

Inlaid Windows

• Door styles with inlaid windows serve various purposes. In some cases windows are used functionally to provide a view of what lies beyond the door. In other cases, windows are used aesthetically. Such is the case in doors with inlaid frosted glass. Frosted glass is opaque and does not provide full visibility in the way that nonfrosted glass does. Inlaid windows in wooden doors assume various forms, from long thin slats running from the top to the bottom of the door to small square panes of glass on the top or sides of the doors. French doors are more glass than wood; wooden frames surround two large panes of glass.
  
  

Arch Top

• Wooden arch-top doors assume two forms. They are either doors with rounded, rather than squared, tops, or standard rectangular doors placed beneath a static arch in a frame. Arch-top doors have aesthetic and structural benefits. Rounded doorways give an air of antiquity as the form was commonly used in ancient Roman, Romanesque, Gothic and neoclassical architecture. Arches are structurally beneficial as they distribute the weight placed on a doorway over a wider area than a square doorway does. Wooden doors with rounded tops must be placed in frames specifically designed to accommodate the rounded door. Rectangular doors with a static arch top can be placed in standard frames to which the arch top is added.