A DIY Tutorial

We love our house. It has lots of "charm" . By charm, please read "built in 1952 and needs upgrades you would never think of when buying a house".

Enter 'Operation DIY Change Out Doorknobs'

Progressively we would find ourselves getting stuck in or out of rooms, and no amount of WD-40 would help. So we decided we would just have to bite the bullet and begin to change out the doorknobs....I secretly hated the brassy look anyways :). This is what the doorknobs looked like before.

We thought this was just a simple process of unscrewing and rescrewing(if that is a word), but let me tell you guys. That is not the case...hence the topic, a DIY Tutorial.

Now, older doorknobs have a slender middle turning axle, which looks like this and is not compatible with newer style knobs.

The smaller hole needs to be enlarged. To do this you can buy a "kit" from your local hardware store with all the tools needed for the upgrade. The kit is relatively inexpensive (under $30 I believe) and with some practice is actually pretty easy to use!

 

This is the template you use so you know where to drill the hole. Depending on the knob you Can set it to standard sizes of 2&3/4 or 2&3/8 inches. You'll need to play around to see what size you need. We used 2&3/8 in

This attachment fits on the end of your drill to drill the hole.

This s not a 1-person job....you need 1 person to help hold the door and the template, while the other drills.

Drill through the door. You may need to come from both sides.

Fortunately for us we did not have to drill the hole for the latch. The old and new were the same diameter, but if you needed to, for example, changing out for a dead bolt or something, the kit comes with a smaller drill for that.

Here on out is cake :) just screw on the new angle and your good to go!!

In some cases we had to adjust the hole on the door jam. You might need a chisel set if you have to make the hole larger so that it "catches" the door properly.

You would also want to keep in mind the cost of the project if you are changing out all the doorknobs in your house like we did. We spread out the cost (and the work) over the course of about a year. Depending on your style knob, they run about $23 each...not cheap when you are looking at a total job of 14 doors when you count bedrooms, bathrooms and all the closets!

Hope you find this tutorial somewhat helpful...at least a place to start :)