Alternate post title: Come and Knob on Our Door. Who doesn’t appreciate a forced pun on a Wednesday morning?
After sharing a roundup of doorknob options last week and ordering the pair we liked best, we waited impatiently for the package to arrive so our upstairs doors could finally be finished. Until then we couldn’t fully close any of the doors, so the moment the box arrived we jumped into installing them.
As with many DIY tasks, adding the new knobs proved more involved than we expected. The latch assemblies on the new hardware were larger than the existing holes, so I ended up widening each opening. I tried using a file first, as the instructions suggested, but it was slow and inefficient. A drill bit made the work much faster, so that became my method of choice.
I had to do that for every single door — eleven in total — which added time and created a fair amount of dust and debris. On five doors I also needed to chisel a notch a bit deeper so the latch would sit far enough into the strike plate to line up properly with the knobs. What I thought would be an hour-long job turned into a four-hour drilling and chiseling session, but in the end it was worth it.
Seeing the hallway with all the naked doors before we started made the space feel unfinished. Once the knobs were installed, the difference was obvious. It was also the first time we’ve been able to close every door since moving in, which has been especially useful for rooms like Clara’s — no more propping a door with a floor pillow for naps — and for the bathroom, which benefits from privacy.
We chose knobs with substantial back plates for most of the doors. They add a classic, understated detail without feeling overly ornate. Sherry said they look like little exclamation points on every door, and that’s a pretty accurate description: they make a quiet statement without competing with other elements in the hallway.
To save some money, we used the plate-less version of the knob on closets and a tucked-away attic door, since those were about ten dollars less. We did make an exception for the hall bathroom and installed a plated knob so it wouldn’t stand out awkwardly from the other doors at the top of the stairs. The linen closet has two doors side-by-side, and we thought two plated knobs there would look too busy, so it received the simpler closet hardware as well. Because everything shares the same finish, the overall look is cohesive: plated knobs generally indicate rooms, while the plain knobs mark closets or attic storage.
Several readers asked about locks, so we took some detail photos of the mechanism. Each interior knob has a small push-button on the inside to lock the door, and it unlocks by turning the knob from the inside. We appreciate having locks around so Clara becomes familiar with them and learns not to touch them without permission. If she did accidentally lock herself in a room, there’s a small keyhole on the exterior side that opens with a flat emergency key — we keep those keys in our junk drawer so they’re easy to grab if needed. Update: we tried the tip of balancing keys on top of the door frame, but these particular keys are flat and don’t balance well.
We’re relieved not to have a row of holey doors glaring at us anymore, but the house still feels very new. We’ve only lived here two weeks, and it shows: furniture and boxes are in odd places, walls and windows are mostly bare, and there’s a long list of decisions to make about furniture placement, window treatments, closet organization, and paint colors. That said, the planning phase is our favorite part. We’ve been brainstorming late into the night until one of us drifts off and we realize we’re talking to an empty room.
And yes, the household mischief continues — we already caught Burger the chihuahua playing with Clara’s old play mat. No funny business behind closed doors on our watch.
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