Most recent revision: June 18, 2020

We appreciate Mohawk Consumer Products’ sponsorship of this article. As always, every perspective I express is solely the result of my personal interactions with the products.

Have you ever replaced your door hardware only to discover that after installing the new strike plate, your door won’t latch? Or have you ever encountered doors that, for whatever reason, won’t latch and close? So today I’m going to show you an easy remedy for a door that won’t close.

The most common reason why a door latch fails to engage is that it is out of alignment with the striking plate’s hole. Use a lipstick tube to mark the door latch’s tip if you’re unsure whether or not that is the issue. Next, shut the door and inspect the strike plate to see where the lipstick has transferred. You can tell you have an alignment problem if the lipstick almost touches the strike plate’s hole.

Try tightening the hinges on your door if the latch is too high or low. After that, if your door still won’t close, remove one of the screws on the hinge’s jamb side and insert a 3-inch screw; this will aid in pulling in the entire doorjamb. Use the long screw at the top hinge to lift the latch, and the long screw at the bottom hinge to lower it.

The latch wasn’t too high or too low, so the hinges weren’t the issue when we recently replaced the door hardware in the bedrooms of our twin girls. The new strike plate’s little forward placement was our problem. However, since we only needed to relocate it a little bit, we ran into a dilemma. Driving new screws that near to the locations of the old screws would only result in one enormous hole that the screw would not be able to penetrate. We basically needed the wood in our door frame to renew, hehe. Sadly, wood regeneration does not occur, but we have discovered a workaround! Learn how to do it yourself by reading on. For your convenience, this post includes some affiliate links. If you choose to use one of them and then make a purchase, I will receive a small commission that will go directly toward maintaining this blog. To view my complete disclosure policy, click here.

How to move a strike plate and drill functional, new holes Supplies required:

Mohawk Epoxy Putty Stick (I selected white, but there are several colors available; pick one that is as near to the color of your trim as you can.) an outdated credit card or leveler a little dish with soapy water a lethal blade Lipstick or gloss Steps:

I advise watching the instructional video first, then reading the instructions. You can watch the video to see the complete procedure from beginning to end. After a little ad, it will start playing:)

1) Combine a little liquid soap with 2 ounces of water.

2) Trim a tiny bit of your Epoxy Putty Stick and knead it with your fingers until the color is completely even. It will start to warm up in your fingers. Dip your fingers in the soapy water and keep kneading if it starts clinging to your fingers. Be aware that the epoxy has a short working life, lasting approximately 6 minutes after mixing.

3) Once the color is completely uniform, use your fingers to press the epoxy putty into the holes left by the old screws. If necessary, scrape away any epoxy putty that extends higher than the wood’s surface using a leveler card or an old credit card. Simply lightly brush the epoxy with the soapy water combination if it starts to adhere to the card or your fingertips.

4) Give the filled area at least 20 minutes to cure. The amazing thing is that epoxy putty is built of a RESIN and a HARDENER, which makes it the ideal moldable putty for patching up big holes and damaged corners. After application, surfaces may be drilled, stained, or painted. And the surface of the epoxy putty is even more durable than wood! After making the repair, you screw in new ones, and the surface is now even more sturdy than the original wood was!

5) Set the striking plate in place and secure it with screws when the epoxy putty has dried. To designate the exact location of the striking plate, we like on apply lipstick or lipgloss to the edge of the door catch before closing the door.

I’m done now! An extremely simple solution for a door that won’t close!
key=”1″ mv create 1 11 200 2016 type=”list” Most Well-liked Projects” thumbnail=”a href=”https://designertrapped.com/wp-content/uploads/diy-home-decor-projects-blog.jpg”