Doors that open into things or into other doors is one of my pet peeves. I suppose it's a flow issue for me but it's just so frustrating. We have a water closet in our master bathroom. It's the reason there was no door to the bathroom when they built it. I put a door in within a week after we moved in because I do not want to wake up at 3:30AM when my husband gets up and starts getting ready for work. I love the look of this door and will eventually replace other doors with this style. For now, it'll just be an odd one out. I will also, eventually, change the trim to the plain 1x4 boards I installed around this door. I'm planning on adding a bit more at the top, but that's another project for another time. This is the story of my project life!
Let's go inside so that you can see what has been bugging me for the 9 months that we have lived in this house, shall we? The door to the water closet opens out...
When it's open, it's in the way of opening the shower door and you have to walk around it to get to the closet. Neither of those things are a very big issue but why not fix it, am I right? I could just keep the water closet door closed all the time but there's a strong chlorine odor in our water and I'm super sensitive to the smell. When that door is closed for any amount of time, I can't stand to go in there. Again, not a very big issue but if I can fix it, I'm going to fix it! This door needs to swing in instead of out.
I wanted to have it swing in and to the left since that would leave the most amount of room in there but the light switch is on that wall. I did not want to go through all of that work only to have to reach around the door to turn the light on or off. Thankfully, there was enough room on the other wall to have it open in and to the right. First, I removed the door and the hinges.
Next, I used a level to draw lines on the inside of the door frame so that I could install the hinges on that side.
Next, pulled out my chisel and hammer and got to work.
I may shell out a bit of money for non-rounded hinges at some point since I didn't round out the frame for the new hinge location. Or I may leave it since I'm eventually changing this door to match the one I installed when we moved in.
I also had to change the door catch on the other side.
Then I lined the door up to the new chiseled out spaces and screwed the hinges back into the frame. Hooray! The door opens in instead of out!
Uh oh!
This is backwards. No big deal. I just had to pull the door handle off and flip it. Now it will close.
There was a lot of adjusting to do to the hinges that took me some time. I was feeling pretty disheartened but I finally got it to close properly.
Another thing I'm leaving for now is the door stop since I may end up putting a whole new door up eventually. It needs to be flipped and moved back. For door function, it just doesn't matter. For looks, it matters. I'm not sure yet if it's worth the time and energy. The door stop is supposed to butt up against the door and the flat side is supposed to be on the door side with the rounded side facing out.
The next thing I had to work on was to fill the original hinge and door catch holes. I used painter's putty. It was pretty fun to play with but it took a lot of work to get it looking nice.
Now I have to be really patient and wait 24-48 hours before I can paint. Today, I'm super happy that the door opens in instead of out.
Now, where's my sander?
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