Common Mistakes People Make Choosing Interior Door Hardware

The biggest mistakes with interior door hardware are buying the wrong function for the room and buying a latch that doesn’t fit the existing hole in the door. Both are easy to avoid with five minutes and a tape measure before you shop.

Here are the choosing interior door hardware mistakes that send people back to the store, roughly in order of how often they happen.

Choosing interior door hardware mistakes start with function

The first one is ignoring what the door needs to do.

Interior hardware comes in four main functions. Passage sets latch but don’t lock, which suits hallways and closets. Privacy sets lock with a push button and have an emergency release on the outside, which suits bedrooms and bathrooms. Dummy sets are fixed handles with no latch, used on closet doors held shut by a ball catch. Keyed sets lock with a key and are rarely needed inside a home. Buying a box of identical privacy sets for every door means locks on your linen closet; buying all passage sets means none on the bathroom.

Not measuring the backset and door thickness

Backset is the distance from the edge of the door to the center of the round hole. Most interior doors in North America use 2-3/8 or 2-3/4 inches, and many latches adjust between the two, but not all. Measure before you buy. Check the door thickness too: standard interior doors are usually 1-3/8 inches, and some hardware is made for thicker doors only.

Forgetting about handing on levers

Levers need to point the right way when installed. Many are reversible, but some are sold as left- or right-handed. Stand on the side the door swings away from you: hinges on the left means a left-hand door. Check the packaging before you open it.

Mixing finishes without a plan

Matte black in one room and polished brass in the next can look deliberate or chaotic, depending on whether it follows a rule. A simple one is to keep the same finish on every door you can see from a single spot, and match the finish to hinges on the same door. Think about how it sits against your trim, too. If you’re repainting doors at the same time, the guide to choosing paint finish room by room covers which sheen holds up on doors and trim.

Choosing knobs where levers would serve better

Round knobs need a firm grip and a twist, which is hard for small kids, older relatives, and anyone carrying laundry. Levers open with an elbow. The ADA design standards favor hardware that works without tight grasping or twisting, and while homes aren’t required to follow them, the reasoning holds.

Swapping a set takes a screwdriver and about fifteen minutes per door. If you need to drill a new bore or enlarge an old one, wear safety glasses. And take the old hardware off before painting rather than taping around it, one of the classic first-time painting mistakes that leaves a crisp outline once the new set goes on.

Buy one set first, install it, and live with it for a week before ordering the rest.