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We Have a Bathroom Door!

As part of our work this weekend trimming out the master bathroom, we also re-hung our bathroom door. When we realized that we were going to be forced to tear out the plaster and lathe walls upstairs, we took some small consolation in the fact that we could still retain the original solid core Prairie-style doors (and all of the trim, which we carefully removed). In the bathroom, the same door is going back in.

Unfortunately, like all projects, reinstalling the door turned out to be more complicated than we'd expected...

This time the problem was entirely of our (read as "Aaron's") own making. When I framed in the new doorway, I didn't realize quite how much you're supposed to allow for the rough-in space. In my case, this meant that I installed the header about 2" too low. Because the new tile for the bathroom floor added a bit of height to the floor.

Luckily, the trusty Bosch electric planer was ready for the task.

To make it fit, I had to start the installation by reattaching the door to the jamb BEFORE the installation. Then I planed the bottom of jamb (which we also saved) almost an inch and planed the door an inch plus an extra 1/8" (which is the recommended clearance between the door and the floor).

From there, it was on to the actual installation. We each handled one side of the door, and after a few tense minutes when we seemed to have locked Jeannie in the new bathroom (OK, that's not really true) we seemed to have it level.

I'll note here that there's a pretty specific technique you should follow when re-installing a door (Jeannie took a crash course courtesy of a back issue of Fine Homebuilding, January 2001), in order to correct for weight shifting and balance as you set it in place. The goal is to prevent the door from running aground when it's opened. There are steps you should follow: where to place the shims, where you place the first nail, second nail, and so on. Jeanne did a pretty nice napkin drawing of the steps, actually, but I can't for the life of me find it right now so instead I'll just treat everyone to this funny photo she took of me nailing in the jamb.

She took it from floor level to make me look especially giant-like, of course.

We'll post a scan of that napkin as soon as we can find it around here...

Posted by aaron on May 11, 2005 at 11:20 AM (4)

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