My Tips for Installing an Inside Door By Your Lonesome (and a Warning)

First, if you are reading my blog for information about installing a door and are not at all interested in my thoughts and reflections, watch my video:

Now for my thoughts and reflections....

I have a fourth to sixth cousin I connected with on Ancestry.com that I write relatively frequently, even though I have never met her and was not even aware of her until I did the Ancestry DNA kit.  She is about the same age as my mother.  One of our most recent conversations were about gender roles, and how things have changed since her day (this was prompted by my new reviews on 18 inch dolls that are meant for boys).  My cousin, as a girl, had wanted to take shop in school...but she had been told that the class was not open to girls.  She would have to take home economics.

In my day, gender roles were still enforced to some degree...but they were also trying to get both sexes to move beyond them.  They told girls they could do anything, and they encouraged boys to take more interest in child rearing.  When I went to middle school, I had to take both home economics and shop.  I recall being absolutely terrified about shop.  I was certain that I was going to either lose an eye or a hand.  I was intimidated by the machines.  As it turned out, I did quite well in shop.  I was the only kid that created my own project.  While I didn't do everything perfectly, I didn't lose an eye or a hand--and my shop teacher seemed rather fond of me.

When I think about it, the men in my family always treated me more like a boy than a girl.  I was given boy toys.  Despite that, though, I considered myself a girl and did not chafe at the gender roles.  To me, gender roles were assigned by nature rather than society, so it seemed perfectly natural.  I was totally fine with having men do home repairs and car repairs--and I never doubted that I would lasso a husband that could do such things.  It never even crossed my mind that a boy could grow up and never learn how to fix things.  I didn't realize those skills were learned, just like girls had to learn how to cook.  I thought they just came naturally, programmed into our genes based on whatever genitalia we were assigned.  By chance if I could not lasso a man to do the grunt work of the household, then I assumed I would make enough money to hire someone to do it.  I never envisioned a future either where it would be hard to find professionals who could do the work.

The point was, I never saw a future where I would be doing home repairs.  Circumstances made it necessary.  My stepfather, when he was alive, was too ill to do the household chores assigned to the husband.  We had severed ties with our family.  We kept to ourselves, so there weren't friends or neighbors we could ask for help.  Often, we didn't have the money to hire people either.  I never desired to compete with boys.  It was just necessary to take on the typical masculine role to help my family.  Many times I was scared to death.  I've painted my mom's car, repaired rust holes in the hood, replaced electrical outlets, replaced washers (plumbing), etc.  I've managed to do more than I thought I could, and I'm proud of that.  I'm also proud of the fact that I often can detect when I'm in over my head and stop.  This happened when I was trying to replace a kitchen faucet.  I could have done it, but the plumbing was all frozen up.  I feared I would do more damage, and so I stopped.

The problem with gender roles is that they don't allow either sex to be self-sufficient--and sometimes that is just necessary.  Just as I would not expect a man to starve to death if there was no one to cook for him, sometimes a woman has to pick up a hammer or wrench to do a repair.

I have never installed a door before.  To some degree, the job was simple because I was not installing a door on a new house--which would require installing a frame.  We already had a frame, though a part of me did worry that I would find out it had been damaged by termites despite its apparent integrity.

Years ago, the room that my mom now occupies used to be my room.  I had removed the door because I had wanted to free up more space in my room by putting on a folding door.  The problem with regular doors is that you have to sacrifice 30 inches of your wall to give it room to swing open.  Folding doors didn't require that much of a sacrifice.  Actually, I've installed doors before in that I installed both of my folding doors...but they aren't as complicated as a swinging door.  Folding doors do give you more room.  However, the down side I discovered is that (1) they magnify sounds that come down the hallway from other rooms, and (2) they aren't sturdy.  After the second one finally fell off, we didn't bother putting up another door.

We bought a swinging door, and that proved to be an ordeal.  First, the company we bought them from didn't have them in stock.  They made them per order--which means we had to wait two months to receive our door.  The first door we received, after waiting two months for it, came to us damaged.  The wood on the side of the door had split. We had to send it back.  The second door came to us more quickly and undamaged, but unfortunately by then I had gotten sick.  It laid propped in our hallway for several months, until I moved it into the storage room.  Yesterday, I spontaneously decided that tomorrow I was going to put in that door...providing my mom (who is a night owl) woke up early enough.  As it turns out, my mom was unable to sleep, so I started on the door.

The door we had ordered came installed in a frame, hardware included.  It had a pre-drilled hole for the doorknob.  Thankfully doors seem to be relatively standard in size, and everything matched up (the hinges and knob hole lined up to where our old door's hinges and doorknob latch had been).  We didn't realize there was right and left-handed doors until we ordered ours, but it turned out we ordered the correct one.  Whether a knob is on the right or left side determines how the door will open into a room.  You determine which one you need, if I recall, by which hand you use to open the door when you are inside the room.

As I didn't not need the frame, I unscrewed the door from it.  I also removed the inner wood pieces that line the door on the outside, as I had removed those as well years ago when I installed the folding doors.  My challenge was that I had to lift the door to align it with the hinges, but I couldn't screw the hinges in while I held the door.  I wasn't alone technically, but I really try not to ask my mother for help--even though she is willing.  My mother is in her sixties, she is morbidly obese, and she has a bad back.  I was rather proud of my solution.  I took a cut up cardboard box and put the door on top of it.  It took a few adjustments--adding and subtracting cardboard panels--until the door was flushed with the hinge holes.  Though I still had to hold onto it until I got the first screw in secure, it wasn't as hard as I didn't have to lift it up as well.

My old door had two hinges and this door had three.  I was worried I would have to remove the middle hinge because I didn't have a space cut out for it...but would two hinges be able to support this heavy door?  As it turned out, I didn't need to remove it.  Though no space had been cut out for it, I just screwed it in--and it didn't interfere with the door closing.

Next I hammered in the little wood pieces that lined the outside of the door.  The top piece was the most difficult.  One thing that helps is to drive nails into the piece partway before putting it up.  That way you don't have to hold the nails while hammering, and they don't fall out of the wood.  I found hammering them still difficult because you are hammering upside down.  To make matters worse, termite damage above the door made itself known when it started raining termite dust on top of me every time I banged the hammer.

At this point, though, I was feeling rather psyched! All I had left to do was put on the doorknob.  I had put up a door! I felt awesome! Yay, Jessica! You go girl! Woot-woot-woot-woot! I'm the greatest!

It is when we get cocky that we make the stupid mistakes.

There had been some problems I had conceived of beforehand.  That the door would fall on top of me was the main concern.  That almost happened, but because I had anticipated it, I prevented it from happening.  I also worried about putting the door on the wrong way, and that didn't happen because I made sure it was going on the right way.

It is the things you don't anticipate that you have to worry about.  When you try something the first time, you have to expect to make your share of stupid mistakes.  You can study up all you want, but there are some things that even the pros don't warn you about.  A pro probably forgets all the mistakes they made after so many years of doing something anyway...but then there is also the fact that there is usually only one way to do something right, but there is an infinity of ways to screw something up...so many ways that everybody can screw up in a different way.  I feel that this is an important thing people have to accept.  I get a lot of flack on YouTube for my repair videos from people who thought I could have done something better.  Do you know the one thing I've noticed about every single troll that has made a nasty comment? I would expect a mechanic or someone who did those type of repairs for a living to be the ones criticizing me.  However, it isn't people who actually do the repairs that are the most critical.  It is people who watch videos about repairs but never do them that leave the nastiest messages.

Why do most repairs not get done?  Yes, sometimes they do cost quite a bit of money.  They also require a bit of effort, and most of us have busy lives.  In the end, though, is that really what is holding up the repairs?  I think not.  I think the reason why most repairs remain undone is because people are afraid of making mistakes.  I admit it can be frightening.  You certainly don't want to make a mistake with your plumbing or your electrical wiring.  However, I think in the end most people are held back by the fear of failure, making a mistake, and being laughed at.

Most of the repairs I've done...I've not done them perfectly.  There is no way I could have with something I've never done before. The varnish streaked when I coated my mom's car.  A nail goes in sideways, or I bend two or three before I get one successfully in.  I encounter something unexpected like extra wires when replacing an outlet.  Yet, while I don't do things perfectly, I do get repairs done well enough to do the job.  In two cases, I also realized when something was beyond my abilities and stopped while I could.  I think there are three important rules to doing repairs.

1. Expect to make mistakes and not to do things perfectly, and realize that it is not the end of the world, and you can still make something functional even if it isn't perfect.
2. Know when you are truly over your head and when to stop before you do irreversible damage.  I once planned to replace a stem in the bathroom plumbing.  When I unscrewed the knob, the piping started to disintegrate...and I realized I couldn't do the job.  That was the day that I realized that everything could be reduced to dust--even metal, which can be corroded by water.
3. Do repairs when you have plenty of time and patience.  Expect the unexpected and for things to wind up being more work than what you thought it would be.  I've done numerous repairs, both auto and home, and let me tell you...NOTHING EVER GOES LIKE I PLANNED! Now, true...I am an amateur, but I think it is true of the pros too.  I once had a professional plumber race out of my house crying because my bathroom sink's piping was not standard size and wouldn't fit the parts he had brought.  He drove off and refused to come back. The company had to send someone else to finish the job.

I fully expect to get a lot of negative comments for my door video on YouTube.  I guarantee you, though, that every person that comments will have never put in a door, and they never will.

I think doing repairs inside the house gives you a false sense of safety.  Our houses are our sanctuary, and up until today I probably didn't take the same precautions doing inside repairs as I did outside repairs.  Outside, I tried to keep my tools close by--and I always carried my phone in case of an injury that required me to call for help.  I didn't tend to do this inside the house, and today I learned that this was a mistake.  Inside jobs require just as much preparation as outside jobs, particularly if you are by yourself.

I fortunately did have my mom at home.

Everything had went well up until it came time to install the door knob.  The instructions for the doorknob were a bit confusing because they assumed the doorknob didn't come with pieces already together.  I had to jump ahead of the instructions to find the step where I should start, as my knob was pre-assembled.  I had installed the latch the door clicked into, and I had installed the inner workings into the door, but I hadn't put on the knobs.  I'm usually in the habit of checking things at each step to make sure they are fitting correctly and lining up properly.  I don't like making more work for myself, and I don't want to have to undo everything if something is off.

Unfortunately, this was a mistake in this case.  Before I put on the knobs, I wanted to make sure the door's inside piece lined up with the latch it went into.  I shut the door, and I heard click.

Good news...it lines up perfectly.  Bad news, I was locked in.  Without the knob, I couldn't retract the piece that had went into the latch.

When I was younger, I prided myself on having a cool head in emergencies.  During Hurricane Wilma, the air conditioner blew into our house, leaving an opening that was letting in rain and a lot of wind.  Had I have went to fix a snack when my stomach grumbled rather than wait to finish a few Spanish exercises, I probably would have been injured or killed when the AC came through.  I didn't even consider that.  I just calmly took a piece of wood off the back of my armoire and with some difficulty nailed it over the hole, then reinforced it with furniture pressed against it.  It held until the hurricane passed over.

In my forties, though I still have problem solving ability, I'm finding myself reacting more initially to fear.  When we are younger, we are blissfully ignorant about consequences.  Though that can be a problem for us and make us do stupid things, it also decreases our ability to become paralyzed by terror.

When I locked myself in the room, I was frantic.  My situation wasn't dire.  Though I didn't have my phone in the room, my mom was at home.  Our house is small enough that we can call out in any room and be heard by someone on the opposite end.  I also knew how to fix the problem.  I just needed to find something to stick into the space between the door to press against the piece that goes into the latch to free myself.  If all else failed, I'm sure the police could help--though they would probably damage the door trying to get me out.

While the problem solving part of my brain was proposing the solution, though, the rest of my brain not involved in that was going into terror mode.  I started having difficulty breathing.  I suddenly had to pee (and there is no bathroom connected to my mom's room).  The tool that would have been most helpful to me was outside the door (a flathead screwdriver).  Though my mom was there, the panicking part of my brain failed to register this.

OH, MY GOD! I'M TRAPPED! I CAN'T GET OUT! I'M GOING TO BE FORCED TO LIVE OFF MY OWN FECES AND URINE UNTIL I DIE A DOG'S DEATH ANYWAY FROM STARVATION...OR MAYBE FROM DEHYDRATION. I'M GOING TO BE LIKE THOSE PEOPLE THEY MENTION ON CSI WHO DIE, AND NOBODY FINDS THEM FOR SEVERAL MONTHS--AND ONLY DISCOVER IT AFTER THE SMELL OR INSECT ACTIVITY GETS TOO BAD...OR THE DON'T PAY THEIR RENT WHEN IT IS DUE, BUT I DON'T PAY RENT SO I'M DOOMED! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! OH, MY GOD! I CAN'T BREATHE! MAYBE I'M RUNNING OUT OF AIR! I'M GOING TO SUFFOCATE!

My mom managed to push through the flathead screwdriver, and within seconds I freed myself.  I'm not a hugger, but mom got a big hug.  I was so relieved! My mom suggested stopping--we don't need a doorknob.  However, I felt I knew what precautions needed to be taken to prevent something like that from happening again, and I felt I could finish the job, shaken as I was.

I took the pieces out of the door and loosely assembled the doorknob to see how it worked.  Once I figured this out, I put it back on the door.  IMPORTANT TIP:  Make sure you assemble the doorknobs to the door before testing it--and make sure before you close it that they can retract the inner piece that fits into the latch.  If you have a locking door, remember that it won't retract if it is locked...though it probably won't fit into the latch either if you lock it before putting it into the latch.  This was actually a good learning experience because I learned more about the inner workings of a door knob--and I have a better idea of how to get out of a room if locked in.

It was, though, very scary--but when I finished the job, and everything worked like it should--I felt more euphoria than usual.  Admittedly, though I made sure the inner part retracted when I turned the knob before closing the door, I was terrified to test it.  However, it worked.

I also realized I'm going to have to take more precautions in the future.

1. Keep all tools nearby you, and make sure you are not cut off access to them.  If I was working inside the room, the tools should have been with me rather than outside the door, where I had left them.  I was lucky my mom could squeeze the flathead through the door.
2. Make sure your phone is charged and also on you at all times, so if you need to call for help, you can.
3. It may not hurt to have water, a snack, and a pail with you too.  If you do get trapped, you will have supplies to hold you while you wait for help so you don't have to resort to eating your feces--and if you have to go, you can use the pail.

It was both a victorious and traumatic day.  My mom rewarded me with pizza and cinnamon sticks, which soothes all traumas and makes victory a delicious experience.