Internal Doors

The last couple of weeks have been used for various things, but most importantly hanging up internal doors. We now have all but 3 in place and one of those will hopefully be completed during the day. As such, we will only have the door into the en-suite bathroom and the walk in wardrobe left to be completed.

When it comes to doors we decided to buy solid pine doors, rather than the hollow core doors made out of some timber and mdf. The advantage of this is that they have better sound insulation; the disadvantage is that they are made out of solid pine, which has a tendency to absorb moisture and may therefore warp a bit. With both types of doors we would have had to either paint or varnish them, so with the pine doors we have opted for one coat of varnish that includes a stain, and then another two coats of a clear varnish - both water based.

Many of our readers will probably already know how to hang up internal doors, but for those of you who do not, here is a bit of an overview. Please note that these internal doors do not have a door sill at the bottom of the door. Installation of such doors will be a bit different. It is however, not very common to have door sills on internal doors here in Australia.

So, here are the steps we went through for each and every door:

Door jamb set purchased from the local saw mill. Material is Tas Oak hardwood. It is a bit hard to see from the picture, but the wide boards for the top and the sides of the door frame are actually tapered so that they are a bit wider on the side that will be towards the door opening. This is to make it easier to fix the architraves.

The first step is then to cut of the excess timber on either sides of the top part.

Result after cutting

Then we drilled holes for the screws and counter sunk them to make sure the head of the screw is not in the way.

The sides are then held in place with a clamp and the top fixed with screws.

The frame is then carried into the house and put in place in the door opening. It is not yet fixed with screws (or nails).

Then it is time make a rebate in the door for fixing the hinges. The size and depth of this will depend on the type of hinges you buy. for some types of hinges it is not necessary to rebate, but as our doors are solid, we decided to opt for a good quality heavy duty hinge, which needed rebating.

Hinge fixed in place

The next job is then to make holes for the screws to fix the door frame. Again, we predrilled the hardwood and then counter sunk for the screws. We fixed each side of the frame with 4 screws into the hardwood frame of the house.

When fixing the frame, we put them in place temporarily and then put the door into the frame. This way, we could adjust the frame in case the sides were not level.

The door was then fixed with one screw in each hinge and tested to see that it opened and closed properly. After this, the frame was then fixed on the other side of the door, ensuring the correct clearance between the door and the frame.

Door installed and working well.

The next job is the installation of the door handle. First of all, we used the template supplied with the door handle to mark out where the holes needed to go. These were then drilled with a 6.5mm bore for the small holes and a 16mm spade bit for the big holes. The main importance here is that you make sure you hold the drill straight so that the hole comes out at the same level on the other side.

The latch is then inserted in the hole and the edges marked for it to be chiselled out.

Chiselling completed

The latch is then installed and fixed with screws.

Door handle is then fixed in place.

Next step is to mark the door frame to know where the striker plate should go.

Centre point of the hole is marked...

and then drilled, again using a 16mm spade bit

The striker plate is then held in position and the edges marked.

Rebate for the striker plate chiselled out.

Striker plate installed and fixed with screws.

Door in correct position with door handle installed.

The final job is to install the door stops - these are the thin stips of wood seen in the first picture. We first measured the height on either side and the width on the top and then cut the strips to the correct length, using a 45 degree mitre cut. Then we predrilled holes for the nails and fixed them to the frame without nailing them fixed. Then we tested that the door opened and closed properly before fixing the door stops.

Door stop next to striker plate.

The final job was then to install the cover strip at the bottom that hides the join between the floor boards.

Door in closed position with cover plate on the floor.

Door stained

Another couple of pictures of doors:

Laundry door

Doors into bathroom and toilet. The toilet door was cut in half to make it a bi-fold instead of a normal door. The reason for this is that we have designed the toilet with wheel chair access in mind and a door opening into the room would not give the required turning space for a wheel chair.

Final door picture - this for the linen cupboard, where the door was made out of structural ply, with a cover strip in the middle of Tas oak. The door has not yet been stained on this picture.

Another update that has happened is with the kitchen. However, to make it easier to follow the kitchen installation we have posted these pictures in Diary Entry no. 113.

Cheers !

Any problems, please email webmaster. This page was last updated 24/07/2008