Hanging a Door
Today I hung a new door for my basement bathroom. Photos are below. There's quite a history of frustration behind this door. I wasted weeks trying to salvage and rehang the original bathroom door only to give up in frustration because I couldn't get everything to line up right. I then went out and bought a pre-hung door, which is what you see in these photos. Even a pre-hung door is difficult to hang, and it took me two tries over two weekends to finally get it right.
My sincerest thanks to Don Bales for tolerating all my rants and whining about doors, and for providing encouragement and advice throughout this project. Thanks also to Eric Burke for explaining to me that it's important to start with the hinge side of door first, making sure that side is plumb, before working over to the latch side of the door.
One challenge that I faced early on is that Menards sold me a door that was too tall for my rough opening. When I told the salesperson I had a rough opening of 30x80 inches, he correctly sold me a 28-inch wide door (28 inches + the jambs gets close to 30), but he neglected to account for the fact that an 80-inch tall door won't fit into an 80-inch tall rough opening. I didn't catch the mistake either until I got home and tried to fit the new door in place. It's an hour and a half drive one-way from my house to Menards, so returning the door wasn't a desirable option. I ended up cutting it down to fit, which didn't turn out to be all that difficult to do. It was just as well, because my alternative was to order a custom-sized door and wait weeks for it to be delivered.
The new door is made of pine, and cost me around $90.00. Before buying this door, I spent weeks, and a fair bit of money on supplies, stripping paint off the original door, sanding it down, stripping paint off the old door hardware (skeleton key lock), and then priming the door. I was an idiot. I wasted many times $90.00 worth of my time trying to salvage an old door that I eventually had to throw out anyway.
Figure 1. My new basement bathroom door all shimmed and nailed into place. All that remains now is to paint it and trim it.
One of the jambs on the prehung door was bowed in a bit near the top. As a result, when I closed the door, the door would hit the jamb where the bowing was worst. This caused me quite a bit of consternation, because the upper two-feet of my walls on either side of the door are glass-block. I couldn't nail that part of the jamb into the glass. You can see my solution in Figure 2, and I'm quite proud of it. I had 1/2-inch of space to play with between the jamb and the wall, so I cut down a board to fit that space. I did that to make shimming easier, but it played into my solution for the bowed door too. I screwed the door jamb (on the left in Figure 2) into that thin board (to the right). That had the effect of pulling the board towards the jamb, and did nothing for the bowing. I then backed the screw out, drove a shim in near the top of the jamb, and retightened the screw. The shim prevented the board from being pulled snug to the door. As a result, the screw could only pull the jamb towards the board. It worked enough to get rid of the bowing, and now the door closes easily, without jamming into the jam.
Figure 2. I screwed the door into a board to eliminate bowing in the jam.
Figure 3 illustrates a problem I haven't solved yet. Notice how the doorjamb protrudes a good inch or more into the bathroom. This is because my walls aren't plumb. This protrusion leaves me wondering how to trim the door, and you'll understand where I'm coming from when you look at Figure 4.
Figure 3. The doorjamb protrudes into the bathroom by an inch or so.
Figure 4 shows the trim around one of my other basement doors. It's just simple 1x lumber nailed around the doorjamb. This is how I want to trim the bathroom door, and it will work on all sides except the side that protrudes into the bathroom. I haven't figured out yet how to deal with that. Obviously I can't get a 1x3 board to lay flat over the wall and the door jam when the jamb is protruding out into the room by more than an inch.
Figure 4. The doorjamb protrudes into the bathroom by an inch or so.
Update, 8-Oct-2008: I did eventually solve the problem illustrated in Figure 4. I removed and rehung the door one more time to line things up even better. Then I performed a bit of creative carpentry involving the trim. I don't have a photo to show, but the outcome was good.