Front Entry Face-Lift
Update your front door the easy way
Add fresh curb appeal with a new front door.
The usual way to replace a door is to tear out the old jamb and install a new “prehung” door. Often that’s a good way to go. But in my older house, that would have meant ordering a custom jamb width, fussing with tricky interior trim for hours and cutting back the hardwood flooring. So I chose to put a new door in the old jamb. This did require some extra work; I had to move hinges and strike plates for the latch and dead bolt. But I still think it was faster and easier. You can skip those steps If you’re lucky when you hang your new door and the new hardware locations match the old. I’ll show you how to change out a door slab and trim and how to solve problems along the way.
1 REMOVE THE OLD DOOR
Unscrew the hinges from both the new door and the existing door, then set the new door in place to find out if the strike plates and hinges line up with the old ones. If they do, screw the hinges into the jamb and consider yourself lucky— and skip to Photo 6. If the new hinges don’t line up, draw a line from the bottom hinge to the top that connects the back edges of the hinges. It will help you place the new hinges later.
2 PLUG THE HOLES
Glue pine blocks into the latch and dead bolt holes. When the glue sets, cut the blocks flush with a chisel. Glue thin strips of pine into the hinge mortises.
3 FILL THE GAPS
Smooth over the plugs with auto body filler. The filler hardens fast; you can apply two coats if needed and sand it flat, all in about 30 minutes.
4 MARK THE HINGE LOCATIONS
Cut two blocks of scrap wood to the height of the threshold plus 1/8 in. Set the door onto the blocks and move the door into position. Make sure the new hinges are on the line you drew along the old hinges. Then temporarily attach the door with one screw in each hinge. Trace the hinges with a sharp pencil and remove the door.
5 CUT MORTISES
Follow the traced line with a utility blade, making this cut as deep as the hinge is thick. Then, with a chisel at the edge of the jamb, establish the depth of the mortise and work your way from the top down. Cut with the bevel of the chisel down to keep the blade from digging in. When you reach the knife line, the chips should fall away. Hinge-mortising router jigs make this job easy and fast, but if I have only one door to do, I cut the mortises by hand.
6 INSTALL THE DOOR AND ADJUST THE THRESHOLD
Place the door back on the blocks, predrill and screw the hinges in the new mortises. To make the fit airtight, turn the adjustment screws to move the threshold up or down. You want the door sweep to be pinched slightly when the door is closed.
7 LINE UP THE DEAD BOLT AND LATCH
Use chalk or lipstick to coat the ends of the dead bolt and door latch. Retract the dead bolt and latch as you close the door all the way, then turn the handles to let them contact the jamb. Use a 7/8-in. Forstner bit to drill holes where the latch and dead bolt touched the jamb. Place the strike plate over the hole and trace and cut mortises as you did for the hinges.
8 REMOVE THE OLD TRIM
Cut any caulking between the trim and the siding with a utility knife. Otherwise, you might lift the siding as you pull off the trim. Take care to not dent the doorjamb as you pry the trim away.
9 CUT THE SIDING
If your new trim is wider than the old, you’ll need to cut back the siding. I used 3-1/2-in.-wide trim and wanted a 1/4-in. reveal on the doorjamb as well as some wiggle room for caulking, so I traced a line 3-7/8 in. in from the doorjamb. An oscillating tool worked well to cut my cedar shake siding.
10 INSTALL NEW TRIM
Cut a length of Z-flashing 1/4 in. wider than the top piece of trim. Tuck the flashing under the existing tar paper or house wrap. The sheathing on my house was about 1/4 in. proud of the jamb, so I cut a 1/4-in. jamb extension to let the trim sit flat. I tacked the extension 1/8 in. from the edge of the jamb.
11 FASTEN THE TRIM
Screw the trim to the sheathing and doorjamb with trim-head screws every 24 in. Since my trim is wider than the sill, I cut a notch around the sill. To finish up, caulk along the siding, fill the screw holes and paint.