Doorknob!

At least half of the household projects we do result from the fact that our house is a patchwork quilt of reclaimed and salvaged parts. For example, all of the doors--thicker and heavier than your average residential portals--appear as if they came from some industrial setting. They are broad and stout, and the handles and tongues have the look and complexity of hospital or factory furnishings.

And for good measure, some doors don't have strike plates.

It hasn't mattered much to us that the door to Sara's candle workshop didn't latch. But now, with a Little One who pushes her way into all sorts of potential trouble, we need to be able to close off that room. So I set to work on replacing the door handle and adding a strike plate.

Not pictured below is the process of extracting the behemoth inner lock mechanism of the former handle, which was better suited to sealing off the engine room of a submarine than a living room. After I removed the guts, I had to fill the empty chasm in the door with wooden block and putty. After that dried and I sanded it, I could cut new holes for a new handle.

To do so, they have handy jigs that take all the uncertainty out of the process:

This nifty unit comes with jig, two hole saws (one for the handle, the other for the tongue) and can be set for either of the standard distances from jamb to handle (called a "setback," for you Tool Time Tim folks). Here's lunch on the stove, visible through the new hole:

And my thumb through the tunnel that the lock mechanism will soon occupy:

All's A-OK here:
Another jig and a routing bit (included in the same tool kit) allow me to accurately cut out the depression for the tongue plate:

Et voila! A new "satin nickel" door handle for the candle shop:

Somewhere down the line I need to refinish the door (as you can see from the puttied hole above); but for now it's enough to keep Gwendolyn from getting in and eating all the wax.

~emrys