You can rarely think of a house without thinking of doors, the staple item to provide privacy and division in the rooms of your home. When it comes to building a house from scratch, or just upgrading or changing the style of your current interior doors, the installation process can seem daunting at first. But here at Builders Marketplace, we’ve created a handy guide to not only show you the best way to install your new interior doors, but how to choose the doors that are perfect for you and your home.
Step 1: Finding A Door That Is Compatible With The Age And Style Of Your Home
Choosing the right door is not just about aesthetic value, your choice must be made based on the age of your home. Most period doors will rarely be compatible with the construction of modern homes and vice versa. A compromise can be reached by choosing a door that adopts a traditional style with modern construction, a Vertical 5 Panel Door for example can provide the rustic design and style of a period door, with the construction and finish of a contemporary door.
Step 2: Consider Which Material And Finish Is Best
Different materials and finishes can add a range of qualities and features that may be desirable to you when choosing your door. Wood Veneer and Moulded or Primed Timber doors offer more in terms of customisation, with a range of finishes available with Wood Veneer and a range of colours available in Moulded or Primed Timber. Oak has always been a popular choice due to the fact that it can create a cohesive finish with any other oak furniture in a room.
Step 3: Prep Your Door
If you are upgrading and reusing existing doors, any old paint or priming must be removed to ensure a blank canvas for any new decorative work. This can be achieved with paint stripper and a heat gun if you choose to take on this work yourself, or you can contact a professional service to do the work for a reasonable price. Once this is done the doors can be treated, painted and primed to whatever finish you require.
Step 4: Sizing Up The Door
To make sure you trim your door to the correct size, prop the door up against the frame and make markings that match with the frame of the door.
Step 5: Trim The Door
If only small adjustments need to be made to the size of your door, this can be done by simply shaving off the wood with a plane. However, if you need to remove more the 5mm from any side of your door, this can be done by laying the door on a workbench and sawing off most of the excess wood then finishing it off with the plane for a smooth finish.
Step 6: Stop The Door Getting Stuck In The Frame
When you have sawn and planed your door to the appropriate size, it is important to plane a slight slope on the edges of both vertical strips down the sides of the door (also known as stiles) towards the doorstop.
Step 7: Plan The Position Of Your Hinges
In this step, you must carefully mark out the position of your hinge recesses, you may need help with this by getting someone to hold the door up to the frame to get accurate markings.
Step 8: Hang The Door
This is the crucial step of the interior door installation process. Place the hinges on to the door in line with the recess markings you made, mark around the hinges and use a chisel to carve out the recesses, it is important that this step is done with absolute precision, otherwise the door may not open or close properly. You can use the chisel again in the event that you need to make these recesses bigger. Fix the hinges to the door, only securing one screw at first, then fix the door to the door frame. This is so it is easy to unscrew the hinges and re-place them if they aren’t quite right and the best way to ensure accurate installation is to make sure the screws do not stick out. Once the door is hung and opening and closing properly, the rest of the screws can be driven in to the hinges and door.
Step 9: Finish The Door
There are many ways interior doors can be customised and this is the stage in which you choose which finish you would like for the door. If you already chose a pre-primed door, this means you can go right ahead with painting your door in any colour you desire. However, if you have chosen an unfinished wood door and choose to keep the natural finish exposed, sand down the door for a perfectly smooth finish and applying wax and/or treatment to ensure extra longevity.
You’re Done!
After completing these steps, you should have a perfectly hung and finished interior door. We hope this guide will help make the installation process a quick and easy one and make sure to take a look at our Interior Doors to get your project started at a great price.
