DIY Door Final Touches – Adding a Door Knob and Trim | DIY Door Series Part Four

Hello again, door-making DIYers! You determined measurements for your DIY door, built your DIY door, then made a door jamb, cut mortises for the hinges, and installed your new door.  Today is the final post in this four-part series, DIY Door: Everything You Need to Know to Build, Hang, and Trim a Solid-Core, Shaker-Style Door.  I’m going to show you how I cut the holes to add the door knob and strike plate, and how I finished the door with trim and stop molding.

DIY Shaker Style Door: Everything You Need to Know to Build Hang and Trim
Cutting a hole for the door knob in a DIY solid core door

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Materials

  • Enough trim to add to the sides and top of your door
  • 1×2 for stop molding
  • Paintable Caulk

Tools & Hardware

How to Cut a Door Knob Hole in your DIY Door

I bought the Ryobi A99DLK4 Wood and Metal Door Lock Installation Kit for Installing Deadbolts and Locksets, which made the the process super simple and pretty much foolproof. It includes all the hardware you need to make correctly-sized holes in your door.

Ryobi A99DLK4 Wood and Metal Door Lock Installation Kit

Simply attach the jig to your door with screws at the desired doorknob height. Good news–you won’t even have to fill in those screw holes–the latch bolt faceplate will be screwed into them later.

Cutting doorknob hole with Ryobi jig
Drilling Door Holes with Ryobi Door Lock Kit

After the main doorknob hole has been made, drill the smaller hole in the door for the latch bolt. Again, the Ryobi jig makes this super easy as it’s already lined up.

Drilling Door Holes with Ryobi Door Lock Kit

Next, I used my Milescraft mortising template and router to make a cut for the faceplate to sit flush against the door. The mortising template includes several different sizes, so pick the one that corresponds with the size of your faceplate.

Drilling Door Holes with Ryobi Door Lock Kit
Door Knob on DIY Door

Now, make the hole in the door jamb for the strike plate.  The Ryobi door lock installation kit has the correctly-sized drill spade for the job. FYI, these photos were taken after I had installed the trim and stop molding.

Hole for latch plate on door jamb. Putting on door knob, screwing in latch plate.
Hole for latch plate on door jamb. Putting on door knob, screwing in latch plate.

Attach your door knob.

Door Knob Hole
installling_door_knob3 copy

Adding Trim to your DIY door

Your door and frame are nailed into place, it’s time to add some trim to hide the ugly!

DIY door installed before trim is added

When measuring for trim you want to be as exact as possible, so that all pieces match up without gaps.

First, find the measurement for the length of the left and right trim pieces. Measured from the floor to the point where the 45 degree cut begins.  I wasn’t sure if that would make sense written out, so I made a diagram. The bold lines show where I measured.  Again, I started with my left and right sides (dark blue and red lines).  Once those pieces of trim were nailed into place, I measured for the top piece of trim (turquoise line).

DIY Door Trim Measurments

Here, I am marking the measurement on my trim.  My trim was simple, but if yours is more fancy with an inside and an outside, remember to mark on the inside of the trim (side closer to the door).  This is where the bottom of the 45 degree cut begins.

measuring trim for DIY door

I found it helpful to line up a scrap (with a 45 degree cut) with my mark.

measuring trim for DIY door

Then I could draw a line on my piece, as my reference for exactly where the cut would be (I like seeing this when I’m lining it up on my miter saw).

measuring trim for DIY door

Next, bring it to the miter saw (set at 45 degrees) and cut it.

cutting trim for DIY door

Once all pieces are nailed into place, hopefully they fit nice and tight. Close any small gaps where trim pieces meet with paintable caulk.  I like to also caulk where the trim meets the wall, to hide any tiny gaps between the trim and wall.

DIY Door hinge on door and frame

Adding Stop Molding

Finally, it’s time to install another piece of trim inside the frame. The stop molding prevents the door from getting pushed in too far when someone is closing it.  This step is pretty simple–just measure the height from the floor to the top of the inside of the door frame, cut a primed and painted 1×2 to size, and nail it into place.

Interior Door Trim piece

And that’s it!  You’ve built and installed your very own DIY door. It looks great, it’s WAY better than the flimsy hollow core door it replaced, you’ve saved some serious $$$, and you can feel proud that YOU MADE THIS!

DIY Shaker Style Door Painted White Two Panel
DIY Door hinge on door and frame

Check out other posts from the DIY Door Series

DIY Door Series Part One: Taking Measurements
DIY Door Part Two : Building the Door
DIY Door Series Part 3: Installing the DIY Door

If you build and install your own DIY door, I’d love to see how it turns out!!  Tag me on facebook or instagram so I can take a look!

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