We moved into our new construction house 16 years ago and while our home has tons of great features that work well for us, these doors always bothered me.
Door to the master bathroom
They’re dark and plain. They don’t match my style (which is kind of rustic and traditional). I love old houses, farmhouses and cottages from the turn of the century. For years I pondered these doors and thought about painting them and/or adding molding to dress them up like they did here, but what I really wanted to do was change them out for some 6-panel doors that would be a better match for our colonial-style house.
The Problem: We have 17 interior doors in this house in two sizes (23″ x 80″ and 30″ x 80″) which both cost $26 at Lowe’s. Total cost for the doors would be $464. And I really had no idea about installation. Would I do the work myself, or hire someone to install all these doors? I mean, it seems like I have heard that “hanging” doors is difficult work…just the fact that you “hang” them made me feel like I had no idea what it entailed! A Lowe’s employee told me that when he worked in construction he would charge $100 per door to install. That adds a whopping $1,700 to my little project.
On a trip to the local Habitat for Humanity Restore I saw a sign, “Doors 30% off”! They had 6-panel doors and a bunch of them! The small size I needed was $10 ($7 with the discount) and the larger doors were $20 ($14 with the discount). That would bring the cost of the doors down to $176! For that price I would figure out how to get them “hung”. Plus, I ended up making 4 trips to find all 17 doors, which spread the cost out across a few months…. (uhm hmmm, you aren’t going to start asking me how long it’s going to take to put the doors in like my husband, are you?) Because, yes…I bought the doors a few 6 months ago and I still have 2 left to do, which is NO BIG DEAL when you are saving $2,000, right?)
What I did: I bought one door as a test. To see if I could do the work myself, and to see what the hubby thought of the one door before I threw 16 more in my minivan. I replaced the front hall closet door first because you see it as soon as you walk into our house. To this day seeing that door makes me smile.
It was trial-and-error to say the least. By the time I got home from Restore with that first door it was time to get the kids off the bus. It was a cold February day so as soon as we got home from the bus stop the living room filled with the kid’s neighborhood friends. They were intrigued with my door project and honestly having an audience kept me going as I tried and failed to “hang” the door. The doors from Restore are donated and many are used. The good part about that was they already had the holes drilled for knobs and latch plates and were already notched out for the hinges.
After much hanging and taking down of that first closet door, this is what I have to share about…
How to Hang An Interior Door
1) Take the old door off of the hinges. Leave the hinges on your door frame because you will be able to resuse them.
2) Stand the old door up to the “new” door and with a pencil mark where the hinges should be on the new door and make sure the door knob lines up. I am betting that it is standard to drill a door knob 35″ from the ground because the door knob holes usually matched (and I checked this measurement along with length and width of door before I bought them). But I am guessing there is no standard for placing the hinges because I always had to make small adjustments to make sure the hinges would fit.
Using a chisel and a hammer chisel out the notch for the hinge on the “new” door to match the location on the old door if it didn’t perfectly line up. I found that usually I would only have to chisel out a few milimeters on each hinge to make them match. (This one though was wayyyyy off!)
These notches for the hinges are the only draw-back to using the used doors. When your hinge is screwed back on you can see where the old hinge used to be. While it is not ideal, no one has ever noticed or commented on this and I never really notice it either. Plus I still need to paint the doors, so it will be a lot less noticeable then.
4) Unscrew the door knob and knob plate catcher thingy (what is that called?!) off of the old door.
5) To help lift the door a few inches off of the ground to match up to the hinges, I would use a folded towel on the ground and set the door on the towel until I had the right height. Then, using a drill I attached the hinges to the door.
6) Add the door knob and catch plate. (Perhaps at a later date I will spray paint the door knobs a more current finish such as brushed nickle or aged bronze. But for the moment, I am waiting for brass to come back in style.)
The only other materials I had to buy were a set of (good) chisels for $19.99. They sell a butt plate that helps with sizing of the hinge notches- but it is not necessary. If I had to notch in the entire hinge on a door that came as a slab (nothing pre-drilled) I just used the hinge as a template and drew around it with a pencil to mark where the hinge needed to go. Also, a slab door meant drilling the holes for the knob- but I loved that part!
So, timewise I know I joked that it took me 6 months to finish this project, but that is mostly because it coincided with my busiest season for work (which is March – May) so I didn’t get to work on any doors during those months. I bet on average it took me 45 minutes to hang each door so it really is a big project (12- 13 hours). But, I am very happy with our new, brighter doors through-out the house. Especially how much brighter our upstairs hallway is now.
Speaking of brighter doors. My original idea was to paint the doors a rich chocolate brown (like this idea picture) once they were installed, but I really like how they brightened everything up. What color would you paint them? (To go with the wood trim…because like the out-dated brass knobs, I am waiting for wood trim to come back in style too.)
Chic Bargain Shopper 
