I Did the Same $230 DIY Project in Every Room, and Now My Whole Home Looks Better
When I pore over home decor images online, the most beautiful spaces, no matter their aesthetic, often have a finishing touch in common: an interesting door with great hardware.
My husband and I have put a lot of time and energy into upgrading our beach town apartment. Everything from the kitchen counter to the bathroom mirrors were low-cost builder grade and lacked personality when we first moved in. At this point, we’re finished with all the big renovations (bathroom, kitchen, patio, and laundry room).
And seeing how nice those spaces are now, the cheap builder doors looked out of place and extra-dated. They were hollow core, plain white doors that were painted and repainted many times over. They were pretty thin and would rattle with the slightest breeze, and the noise really bothered me. Having just finished the kitchen renovation, I had some left over budget (and energy, surprisingly) to tackle replacing the interior doors.
I did a fair bit of research on what style I wanted and how it would fit with the laid back vibe of the beach style we created through the rest of the spaces. I narrowed it down to a shaker style with its simple, yet classic design.
Up next was working the replacement of six doors into the leftover budget. To plan this out, I had to decide what kind of replacing I could do. With interior doors, there are a couple options.
Types of door upgrades:
The first and probably most common is to take out the entire door jamb. You can buy a pre-hung door that includes the jamb and the door itself already on hinges.
The second option is to replace the slabs (the actual doors), the knobs, and hinges, leaving the jamb and door trim in place.
There are pros and cons to both, but I ended up going with a slab replacement for budget reasons and because some of our door frames were really thin and cornered up next to each other. It would have ended up being a lot more work to get everything to fit just right in these types of corners. Buying a slab door was much cheaper than the pre-hung door, and I could comfortably fit the six doors in the budget — plus the unlacquered brass door handles I had my eyes on.
Here’s how I upgraded my doors using the pre-existing frames:
First, I made sure I had the right materials.
I had to make sure all of my materials were the right size and came in on time. When researching how to replace doors, I landed on a super helpful YouTube video that took me specifically through replacing slab doors. It involved trimming down the door with a circular saw, routing the spaces for the hinges, and drilling the holes for the handles. I already had a circular saw, a router, and a set of drill bits.
Shaker-style doors: I bought six two-panel shaker style doors from The Home Depot for $168 per door. They had great reviews and came in a variety of sizes. I measured the existing doors and bought the size closest to those dimensions.
Brass hardware: For the handles, I went to a local hardware store, San Diego Hardware, to see the unlacquered brass handles in person and pick the style I wanted. I ended up going with the Emtek Merrimack door levers for $155 per door. I bought lacquered brass hinges at $6 per door.
Door-specific templates: I did buy a hinge guide for my router and a helpful door handle jig from The Home Depot that made measuring and planning my hole placement much easier. I spent around $65 for both.
Here’s what I learned.
Label each door: It sounds so simple, but when you have more than one door, they can all start to look the same. I found that using painter’s tape on the new doors worked great to label them without any damage to the brand-new doors.
Take note of what you like and don’t like about your old doors: Although my old doors were cheap, they did fit well into the jamb so I made sure the widths were exactly the same. Some of my old doors were a little short so I made them a quarter of an inch longer and adjusted the length.
Once everything was installed, it was time to paint. Since the new slab doors came primed already, I didn’t have to do that part, and I just chose the color I painted my walls, Valspar’s Swiss Coffee white in eggshell. I used almost exactly 1 gallon at $75. After two coats of paint, everything was done!
All in all, this project took me about one full weekend and cost $2,114. Although it was a bit of a shock to look at the price tag all together, it came out to about $230 per room and boosted the style of every room. Not to mention, they’re much sturdier than the old doors. The unlacquered brass door knobs tie in with the brass I used in the laundry and kitchen renovations as well.
I’m a fairly skilled DIYer (see: my kitchen renovation, laundry renovation, and back patio), and my project took one day for the total install and one day for painting. But this is also a project that you could outsource.
Personally, I plan on holding onto our townhouse and not selling, so it was easy to make the upgrade choice based on my personal preference, but replacing your doors is also something you might consider if you’re selling.
Doors are so noticeable because it’s the first thing a visitor (or buyer) will see walking down a hallway or up to a room. Solid wood doors are something you can also immediately feel when you open them. It is an upgrade that could make a big impact in the sellability of your home. It sounds so simple, but installing new doors gave a new and fresh look to the whole inside.
This article originally published on Apartment Therapy. See it there: I Did the Same $230 DIY Project in Every Room, and Now My Whole Home Looks Better
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