I have always just taken internal doors for granted (and skirting boards for that matter, but that’s for another day). Even now – after doing our Scotland doors – I still don’t really pay any attention to all the different elements that make up the doors in our old house. The linings (and how they’re packed vs the door opening itself), the width of the doorstop vs the door lining and door frame, and then the interaction of all of that with the architrave. And then comes the actual door, with its hinges and handles, and the very precise relationship with the frame, door stop and floor when it’s hung. There’s definitely more to installing doors than I had thought.
Again, I was very relieved to have a professional in, as David (our garage joiner) agreed to help. After he’d done a couple of the door linings on his first visit – and hung the first couple of doors – I then was able to prep the rest of the door linings ahead of his second visit a couple of weeks later to hang the remaining 4 doors.
Along with the door linings though was also all the painting, and prepping for the final paint coats: sealing knots, undercoating, caulking and filling after fixing the frames in place. Then once David had been and hung the doors, it was up to me to put the doorstops and architraves in place – that precise positioning of the doorstops to ensure we don’t have rattling doors, and ensuring neat mitre corners for the architraves… Mostly it went pretty well, but took a long time (aka my usual speed!).
It was great to have all the doors in place by the time we had our August visitors – especially the second bathroom (an old rug isn’t really ideal for a guest toilet!). Sept update: there were initially a few rattles on windy nights when we had the doors closed and the windows open, but now the MVHR has been commissioned we have fresh air without windows open, so it’s no longer an issue.
