While many homeowners hardly bat an eye before knocking out a wall or going a week without running water, others are replacing their interior doors for a more affordable, less invasive approach to home beautification.
From hiring designers and contractors to securing permits and tying up weeks or even months in the process, homeowners will endure nearly anything to improve the look and value of their investment – even the newest of homes aren’t without their list of projects and upgrades.
While change is good, it’s also expensive and time consuming. With interior door replacement, what used to take weeks or longer can be accomplished in a few hours: the change of a home’s appearance and an increase in property value.
The right door draws attention to and sets the tone for a room and switching out older interior doors with new styles is recognized as perhaps the easiest and quickest way to change the style and feel of a home’s interior. Besides, doors marred from years of hard use by children, dart games and personal adornments will never look new again. Rather than sanding, scraping, repainting and patching doors that squeak and don’t fit anyway, why not replace them altogether?
So you have decided your interior doors could use an upgrade, now what? The best approach is to shop around for the right style of doors and the right company to install them. Or better yet, go someplace you can find both, such as a company specializing in interior door replacement.
When selecting a company to replace your existing interior doors, consider locating a one-stop source that custom-fits doors to the existing openings, provides designer hardware for the new doors, and can add custom paint to the doors. The best companies can provide all this service by utilizing service teams that remove the doors from the home, then do the cutting, sanding, and painting at a remote location that saves the homeowner from dealing with dust, fumes, and two or more days of workers tramping through the house. The entire interior door replacement should be done in five days or less, and should require only two trips by the service technicians to the home.
When the job is complete, the new doors should fit to a fraction of an inch all around the opening, with even reveals, or gaps, around the door. Even if the old door had large or uneven reveals, or if it rubbed on the jamb, the new door should fit the opening precisely. In Houston, air conditioning flow between rooms requires leaving about 5/8” of gap at the bottom of the door to ensure adequate air circulation.
The new door should be installed on new hinges to ensure a quality fit; the new hinges should fit into the existing mortises on the jamb, and should be flush and fit well. Any stripped screws should be repaired so that all screws are securely holding the hinge to the jamb. Installing hinges on the new doors after the paint process ensures the new hinges are clean and paint-free.
When looking for a company to replace your interior doors, ask if they offer custom hinges and handles, as well as specialty doors such as bi-pass, bi-fold, fire-rated and mirrored wardrobe doors. Other services available should include converting closet doors from bypass or “slide-by” to bi-fold style doors. One popular service is replacing mirrored doors with designer raised panel bi-fold or even solid wood louver doors. Look for a company with proven experience making these conversions so that important details such as floor coverings are replaced where the mirrored door track runs.
This article was written by David W Goza of Interior Door Replacement Company. |
