New Internal Doors

As we've previously established, the doors want to kill us (they have lead-based paint on them) so we decided to replace them. The firstborn still needed a bedroom door so we went out to B&Q, chose a load of doors, realised they wouldn't fit in the car so decided to get them delivered instead. Though, for some reason, they couldn't deliver the new bathroom door (which had glass in it).

I also invested in an electric planer. I didn't have a set-square but I did have a right-angled wall bracket left over from the firstborn's shelves. 

Armed with very little in the way of the right equipment, PPE, assistance or space, I put my YouTube training into effect.

My First Hanging of a Door

I started by fitting the firstborn's door to the door frame. The new planer was very useful here.

Then I marked out where the hinges needed to go. What I never realised was that the top and bottom hinges aren't actually equally spaced; there's an optical illusion at play here. The top hinge is usually about 15cm from the top whereas the bottom hinge is around 23cm from the bottom - this actually makes it look like they are equally spaced when you're stood up! Mind blown!

I used my least blunt (but still badly abused) chisel to create recesses for the hinge in the door and the door frame. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that I was hanging the door on the other side of the door frame - so that it opened the other way. So I had to fill the old recesses with a load of wood filler. 

The bit I was most nervous about was drilling the hole for the mortice latch and lining that up with the holes for the door handle. Not only did I not have a proper set-square, but I have never drilled a straight hole in my life. Straight-ish, yes, but this required actual precision.

I started drilling into the wood but after a few centimetres the type of wood suddenly changed. Despite me marking which side of the door was for the handle, I was on the side designed for the hinges! Well, it was too late now so I persevered and, to the astonishment of everyone, got it to all line up. I think I was 1mm out but I had 2mm to play with so all was good in the end and it's all attached securely.

The Expert Arrives

The rest of the doors were kindly fitted by my Dad. He's had proper carpentry training and actually knows what he's doing. He also has the right tools that have also been well looked after. That makes a difference!

I was expecting to say that he whizzed through the remaining doors. Well, he would have if this wasn't this house. It actually took a few days because the door frames were increasingly wonky. Culminating in the living room door which was the worst - that needed almost a centimetre shaving off in places! 

We didn't bother with one bedroom door because the new staircase will cause that door to be removed. We also need to get the bathroom door from someone who can actually deliver it. Other than that, we have doors that can close now!

Learning to Saw

How do you dispose of a door? 

 

We don't have a huge car or access to a van (hence why the new doors were delivered). So to get rid of them I decided I'd cut them in half so I could take them to the tip. Now, I've also never cut a straight line using a saw so Dad took the opportunity to teach me how to do it properly and I was way too excited by the end result. I actually did a straight line!!!

 

Previous Bodges

One last thing of note was discovered when removing the living room door. We knew that the hinges were loose but I put this down to old screw holes. It turned out that the wrong type of screws altogether had been used. This meant that the thread of the screw was all the way through the wood so of course it was loose!