The wife and I just did a re-fi on our own house, which of course means a fresh Appraisal. Which also meant it was time for a quick spruce-up of the property. And getting around to those interior painting projects we'd been putting off.
As long as we were painting some walls and a few doors, we figured why not upgrade the door hardware? Besides, taking door knobs apart is nearly as easy as taping them off, and as long as they're off the doors… well, you can see where this is going.
Well, it turns out that the door knob hardware from our 50's era house was, well, smaller than the stuff used today. Sheesh. This meant enlarging the holes for the new door knobs, as well as replacing the striker plates in the door frame.
A half hour of ditzing around with a power drill and a wood chisel took care of making the new stuff fit… right up to aligning the new striker plates in the door frame. Where I found off-center holes, long since stripped out by the fumble-fingered efforts of past owners. And just enough off-center that I couldn't get a fresh 'bite' in the wood where the new holes needed to be. Aiyee!
What to do? The Toothpick Trick! The idea is you need to 'build back' wood into the off-center holes so you can shoot a small pilot-hole in the correct location. For this, grab a box of wooden toothpicks, and a bottle of carpenter's wood glue.
Next, dab the end of a toothpick into the glue, and jam it deep into the offending hole. Then bend the toothpick to break it off flush at the top of the hole. Repeat this process until the hole is completely crammed full of glue and toothpicks.
Let this dry for 24 hours, and you're all set to drill fresh pilot-holes exactly where they need to be for the new striker plate.
A quick, simple and strong fix. This fix is also dandy for screws that are flat-out stripped in their wooden bedding, like on door hinges. Pass this along to sellers thinking of updating their home before selling!
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