DIY: Hanging New Internal Doors Throughout The House

One of the last home improvement jobs on our never ending to do list is to replace all the doors throughout the house.

The front door we replaced a few years ago and you can see a before and after here and the finished door sanded, stained and sealed here. You can read more about the internal doors and front door we selected here and the door handles here.

For the internal doors we started replacing a door here and there until all the 4 bedrooms, bathroom, hallway, laundry and powder room had been replaced. It took us over a year to replace all the doors and I'm happy to say we have finally finished hanging all the internal doors, installed new handles, and painted the door frames and doors too.

We thought hanging new doors would be a good home improvement project we could DIY ourselves to save a bit of money, it is fairly easy to do just a bit time consuming, but the best part is it has given us a sense of achievement knowing we did it ourselves.

You don't need a lot of tools to hang doors - this is what we used:

Chisels to cut out the hinges for each door

Screwdrivers, drill and drill bits to take the hinges off and on 

Electric wood plane to plane the door to size

Tape measure, level and a pencil

A pair of saw horses to rest the doors on

Other items needed:

New doors (of course!)

A pair of butt hinges per door

A pair of screws per hinge

  

How we removed the old doors and hung new doors .....

First things first, once we had the new doors and the tools ready, Mr P removed the old doors and hinges from the door frame with a screw driver and chisel.

To make sure the new door fits the door frame, the door frame is measured as well as the door itself .... if I can give one tip when renovating it's measure, measure and measure again just to be certain!

As we are replacing old doors we simply measured the old doors against the new doors and used the old door as a template.

Once the doors were measured and marked Mr P carried them outside to be planed with the electric planer. 

Each new door was laid across the saw horses, clamped on, measured and marked out where it need to be cut. 

Planing doors is hungry work so I was being a good workers off-sider making lunch to keep Mr P's energy levels up!

Then the electric planer went to work to take off some wood from each side of the door. 

The trick is to plane off just a little at a time and not to plane too hard.

For the doors that were opening onto thick carpet (like the rug in the Master bedroom) we made the bottom gap a bit larger so it will open easier. 

All the doors that opened onto the floorboards or tiles we kept at a standard gap.

The door frames are made in the 1960s from jarrah wood by hand and as with anything handmade they are not perfectly square. 

So it takes a few goes of bringing the door back up to the house and checking the fit and then going back to plane some more off until happy with the fit. 

Once the door fit perfectly into the frame and there is no more planing or sanding to be done the next job is to install hinges. 

The type of hinge used for doors is a butt hinge and you use a pair per door.

As we were replacing old doors with the hinges already in the door frame we just needed to mark on the new door where the existing hinge rebate is. The new hinges are fitted when the door is off, by measuring where the hinge will go and marking the depth of the hinge, and using a chisel to carve out the wood so the hinge fits into the rebate. 

Then mark where the screw holes will be, pre-drill with a narrow drill bit, then screw the hinges to the door.

The only door we modified was in the kitchen - we decided to reverse the swing so it opens the opposite way (the old way before our kitchen renovation meant it swung into the pantry which was ok then, but now in the new layout it swings into the fridge which isn't good so it had to be changed).

To change the way the door opened was easy - Mr P chiseled out new hinges into the jarrah door frame and filled the old hinge holes on the other side of the frame with filler and after a coat of paint you will never know we changed it!

Mr P screwed in the top hinge and then the bottom hinge, tightening until the door was lined up and opened and closed evenly. The new door which swings the opposite way was now officially hung!

The new doors have made such a huge impact on the look of the house - they have really modernised the inside and it's not something that just paint or new handles could have done with the old doors. 

They look like a quality addition to our home improvements and I believe add value to the home.

Here are some before and afters .....

MASTER BEDROOM - BEFORE

MASTER BEDROOM - AFTER

HALLWAY (STUDY AND GUEST BEDROOM) - BEFORE

HALLWAY (STUDY, GUEST BEDROOM AND MAN CAVE) - AFTER

KITCHEN - BEFORE

KITCHEN - AFTER

Installing new door handles ....

Once the doors are hung you can install the new door handles.

For this we used a door jig which is a lifesaver - once you work out what height you want the door handle you line the jig up to where you need to drill holes to fit the handle and it makes it much easier and faster to get the job done.

Screw in the new handles and then you are all done!

The doors are still raw wood on the edges where they were planed and the doors need to be painted with an undercoat and a few top coats of paint. 

The paint not only protects the doors from moisture but will also bring them to life with a bright white colour ..... I think everything looks better painted white! 

When you are ready to paint it's easier if you remove the handles (you could always tape them up but we found it easier to remove them).

I will be sharing the type of paint we used from the Dulux range on the door frames and doors in another blog post soon.

Have you tackled any DIY projects around the house lately?


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The Plumbette - Home Improvement Thursday

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