Doorknobs & Hinges – Part 4
Doorknobs & Hinges – Part 4

Doorknobs & Hinges – Part 4

On Saturday July 11th, my day started with moving the deadbolt hole in the laundry room outer door so it would line up with the newly re-hinged [and aligned door].  I moved the new hinges half an inch backwards from their original locations and also added a luan piece behind the top hinge.  That meant the door finally hung correctly, didn’t swing all the way open on it’s own when you opened it a crack, and closed correctly without slamming it.  But that also meant the deadbolt I replaced no longer seated into the old hole in the door frame:

I spent waaaaaaaay too long trying to figure out where the stupid hole should be.  The trouble was the deadbolt was installed slightly crooked [not by me] and therefore the hole in the door was slightly crooked.  I suck at measuring such things, so I ended up using a crayon to make a rubbing of the side of the door where the deadbolt was:

       

Then cut out the rubbing, flipped it over so I could align it with the hole on the door frame, and used a pen to trace the outline of the deadbolt on the back:

       

I held the stencil up to the door and after some chiseling and a lot of swearing, finally got it right!  And added some additional screws for added security.  I still need to fill in the gaps with wood filler and a coat of paint:

WHEW!

Next up was installing the Baldwin Smartkey doorknob [the one I bought years ago with the intention of replacing the broken knob on the laundry room door].  My plan was to install it on the deck door since it was the only outer door without a Baldwin Smartkey knob.  The old doorknob was cheap gold crap.  The only problem with the new Baldwin doorknob was that it was ugly gold.  I spray painted it Rustoleum Metallic:

And installed it on the deck door [doorknob #14/14].  Much better:

       

Now it’s re-keyed to match all our other outer door doorknobs.  One key for the whole house – woohoo!

On Sunday July 26th, I re-replaced the hinges on the front door.  In the time since I’d installed them in Fall 2018 they had already rusted.  Because cheap Home Depot crap:

       

Darwin kept an eye on me from inside the inner front hall door:

The front door is a medley of smashed spider with a side of crushed ant:

        

Ew.  The new hinges look great:

       

Then I replaced the hinges on the yard door [hinges #30-32/42], which were also rusty crap:

       

The holes on the new Baldwin hinges didn’t align with the holes already in the door frame, so I had to drill new ones.  For a couple of the holes that meant using the matchstick and glue trick where you fill old holes with 2 snapped off wooded match sticks and a bunch of wood glue.  Once it dries overnight you can then drill holes that overlap the original ones:

       

Lastly I removed the 4 remaining brass hinges from the upstairs doors [hinges #33-36/42].  Girl cave, bedroom, master bath/bedroom, & master bath/hallway.  The girl cave hinges were all a bitch to remove, and the last one was no better.  I tried the rubber band trick with no luck.  So had to cut into the stubborn ones with my Dremel and muscle them out with a screw driver:

       

Then I spray painted the 4 sets of hinges Rustoleum Metallic:

       

And put them back on the doors.

OLD:

the old brass hinges in our house were ugly, at least to me

NEW:

       

I have since fixed up the areas around the new hinges with wood filler & paint.  They look AH-MAY-ZING!!!

So now all 14 doorknobs have been replaced, all 5 deadbolts have been replaced [including the deck door one that I installed myself], and 36 out of 42 hinges have been replaced.

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