How to install door hardware
This weekend we had the pleasure of putting on the final touches of a beautiful residential project with custom millwork throughout. When you are working long hours on a project of this scale, door and cabinet hardware can easily be overlooked, but the truth is that it’s likely the most important part. Cheap or builder grade hardware has limited finish selections, plastic substitutions of crucial mechanical parts, and can easily make an expensive door feel like a kids toy.
In this step by step guide, I will walk you through how my team at Anderson Carpentry Co. installs door hardware from the very first steps, to the final details that make all the difference.
What is the best interior door hardware?
With so many products available online, it’s easy to be misled into purchasing door and cabinet hardware that looks good and has an attractive price point but fails with little use. Unfortunately, cheap door and cabinet hardware is often coated in a low quality paint finish that chips and fades with basic use. It also may appear to be made of solid materials but the important mechanical parts inside have been replaced with cheaper plastic substitutes instead of metal leading to sagging handles with even just light use.
My team at Anderson makes sure that the quality of every piece of hardware that is going into our doors is equal to the materials we use for the rest of the doors. It’s a tall order, but our goal is that you never have to replace any of the hardware in our doors.
Here’s a short list of brands we recommend and a couple brands you should think twice about when you’re shopping for door and cabinet hardware that matches the quality of our doors;
Baldwin - great hardware with indoor and outdoor product offerings, multiple price points and product lines that fit most budgets, with a multitude of finish options.
Schlage - great hardware with indoor and outdoor products, multiple price points, and product lines.
Kwikset - we recommend, you think twice about this product. It’s owned by a great American manufacturer ASSA ABLOY but this is their builder grade line of product mostly made in china.
Emtek - for an overseas company Emtek is a decent product with a competitive price point. There aren’t as many finish options readily available as the other brands mentioned but build quality is generally solid.
During your search for the perfect hardware take note of all the different types of doors and cabinets your project has. Some doors may require single sided or double sided dummy handles, privacy locks for bedrooms and bathrooms, or recessed pulls for pocket doors. Make sure the finish you choose has a diverse selection of products available for each of the doors and cabinets in your project. Remember it’s all about the details and nothing is worse than mismatched finishes!
prepare for guaranteed success
At this point, you’ve taken delivery of all your door hardware and your ready to get started with installation. Because you only have one chance to get this right, we recommend you take a step back and make every preparation you can for guaranteed success. here are the few steps we take before any wood is cut.
Organize all the hardware on a table. Take one last count and compare it to your order, it’s not uncommon for hardware manufacturers to make shipping errors and send the wrong set of hardware. If you’re not organized with this step there’s a chance your carpenter may make an irreversible mistake and at least for my team at Anderson, “it’s never the customers fault”.
always stay organized
always stay organized
Now that your hardware is organized, and your positive that there are no parts missing, begin taking each set of hardware to their corresponding doors and place them in an easily recognizable location nearby.
Blue tape or a low tack tape equivalent is going to be your best friend for this next step. Generously apply tape in the areas that you’ll be cutting on both the door leaf and the jamb where you’ll be chiseling out the strike later. The tape is crucial and serves three purposes:
Tape makes It is easy to see your markings
Tape prevents marring and denting from clamps and jigs.
Tape helps prevents tear out.
Generally 37”-39” on center is where interior door handles are bored but refer to your plans. If you’re working for a customer make sure they indicate their preference before you begin to cut.
The boring part
Ironically making permanent 2” holes in your beautiful new door panels is a real nail biter for most new carpenters. For us at Anderson, boring is boring.
Although it may not work for every project, Milwaukee sells a tool that takes away most of the stress from this part of the installation. For around $35 anyone can pick up a “Door Lock Installation Kit” at your local hardware supply store or on Amazon. The Milwaukee lock kit makes quick work of each door leaf making sure your bores on each side of the door are perfectly straight and aligned. It comes with a standard door offset configuration and the hole saws work for most standard hardware, with a little room for adjustment. For this weekend job, the door lock installation kit worked perfect for us. Just make sure the jig is perfectly level before you start boring.
3 strikes and you are out
For most interior passage doors there are only two strikes. One on the edge bore where the dead latch comes out of, and the second is the receiving jamb strike.
That’s two strikes, maybe four if you have a privacy lock, but never three.
After you’ve bored out your lever and latch mortise your ready to start recessing the latch strike on your door leaf and the jamb. There are many equally valid ways to do this. Often the door hardware you purchase will come with templates and measurements, but for the sake of this guide we will keep it beginner friendly with yet another simple tool.
Before you grab your hammer and chisel or your router and jig we recommend you pick up a $17 “Door Latch Installation Kit”. the Ryobi one our seasoned carpenter reluctantly used is the cheapest I could find, and made quick work of what could be intimidating work for most beginner carpenters.
Hammering the tools sharp metal strike template against the door edge creates a clean squared cut, then you can turn the tool on its side where it has a built in chisel made to follow the groove it embedded. A couple swings up and down with the chisel bit leaves a clean tear free recess. Now you can follow up with some careful chiseling for a perfect strike plate fit.
Hardware Installation
The key to installing door hardware is to be patient, sometimes it takes just a couple miniscule adjustments to get a door to close and open just right
This is the part of installing hardware that will test your patience, a little too much torque and you’ll easily strip a finish screw. Take your time following your hardware instructions and diagrams carefully installing the required parts with the proper drill bits.
If your strike plate doesn’t sit far in enough, don’t try to force it in further, unscrew and chisel some more. Take your time to get things fitting the right way. This is the final step and if you get this part right you’ll never change your door hardware again.
“ How you do anything,
is how you do everything. ”
