If you’re as big a fan of those TV home improvement shows as I am, you’ll know that most rehab projects can be done in 20 minutes, maybe an hour if you’re taking the house back to its studs.
While ours took a little longer, I’m pleased to report the renovation of our 1980s townhome is almost done after nearly three years.
One of the final projects has been one I would have thought the simplest. After installing new ceiling lights, adding power outlets, switching carpet for hardwood, redoing the kitchen and bathrooms, and painting the entire interior, the idea of changing the door hardware sounded comparatively easy.
“It’s really just the finishing touch,” I assured Grumpy. “All this gold is so old-fashioned. Black is so much more contemporary, and practical too.”
After a brief conversation about why we couldn’t simply paint them, we set to work. All we had to do was pick and order what we wanted. This was followed by a slightly longer conversation about why Grumpy isn’t allowed to play with tools.
“It’s very simple,” he said, with all the confidence of Ty Pennington talking to a class of third-graders. “All I need is my trusty electric screwdriver. I won’t even have to take the doors off. I’ll just do it one screw at a time.”
After almost 43 years of marriage, I knew exactly what would happen if I allowed this foolish plan to go ahead. We’d order mountains of doorknobs, hinges and door stops, all of which would still be sitting in the hall unopened years after delivery.
Actually, one package of hinges would be open because we’d have one black hinge attached with four less screws than needed and a piece of duct tape holding things in place.
“But I’ve already called the handyman,” I lied. “He said if we order all the stuff, he and his team will be able to fit us in next week.”
Turns out, ordering door hardware is not as simple as opening a door. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever walk through a door again without considering what kind of handle I’m using. For me, it’s all about the design so I spent hours deliberating between round and square roses (square, apart from the three round Grumpy ordered by mistake); levers or knobs (both); straight or curved handles (straight).
Even though we technically downsized by 100 square feet moving from our old single-family house to a townhome, I swear we have more doors here.
“Look, I’ve made your job easier,” I said to Grumpy proudly when he came home from work the next day. “We have 26 doors. We need three levers for the bedrooms and the rest can be knobs on the closets and bathrooms.”
I should have known as I put my feet up that nothing could be that simple. As soon as Grumpy opened my laptop, which luckily doesn’t require any sort of handle, we were plunged into a whole new world.
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“What’s a passage handle?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of it. Looks like privacy knobs can be locked without a key, but we need ones with a key for outside.”
After Grumpy pulled an all-nighter trying to order the right equipment so it would arrive in time (spoiler alert, it didn’t), this is what I learned:
- Most door hinges are a standard size and therefore a standard weight. However, if you order 76 of them, the box will be too heavy to bring into the house. When you remove half of them so you can complete the maneuver, remember to move the 76 packets of matching screws and not accidently put them in the box with the knobs.
- Square roses look very smart as long as all the knobs have them. You cannot mix square and round, even if you put the three round ones “on closets where no one will see them anyway.”
- Dummy handles, so-called because they are “fake” knobs that don’t twist or lock, are probably named for the kind of person who orders them from Amazon at 1 a.m.
- Doorstops are not simply rubber wedges jammed under a door. The technical name for a “wiggly thing at the top of the door” is called a “hinge pin.” You’re welcome.
- The device that stops a swinging door with a dummy handle is called a closet door ball catch. Despite popular opinion, by which I mean mine, it is not just a “bit of metal that doesn’t need replacing because no one sees it anyway.”
After several sleepless nights in which we placed orders, changed orders and realized we’d ordered the wrong item, we were finally ready. As I write this, I have not one but three handymen whisking around the house changing up all my door hardware with barely a word. None of them have had to leave a door unfinished because they couldn’t find an important part nor are they sweating or complaining their backs hurt.
The best part is their boss is easy to get along with and hasn’t rolled his eyes at me once.
I’m so pleased, in fact, that I might just have him change the basement door handle to one that locks. That way I can keep him down there until my next home improvement project.
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved to Naperville from England in 2007.