Doors That Drag on the Threshold
Alright. Hinges, strike plate, planing the edge. Now the last common spot: the bottom of the door, where it drags across the threshold or the carpet.
This one's easy to spot. The door scrapes, or it leaves a mark on the carpet, or you have to lift the handle a little to get it to swing free. Super common in older places, especially once carpet gets replaced with something thicker, or a house settles a bit over the years.
Figure out what's actually dragging
Before you touch anything, look at where the wear is. Open and close the door slow and watch the bottom edge. Is it dragging across the whole threshold, or just catching on one corner? Is it the door itself, or is the threshold humped up in the middle, which happens more than people think, especially with older metal thresholds.
If it's just one corner, that's often a hinge problem, not a threshold problem. Go back and check your hinge screws first. I know we already did that lesson, but doors don't stay fixed just because you fixed them once. Check it again.
If it's dragging evenly across the bottom, that's the door, and that's what this lesson is actually about.
The threshold itself
Sometimes the fix isn't the door at all. Adjustable thresholds, the kind with the little screws you can turn to raise or lower the ridge, are worth checking before you touch a plane. Grab a screwdriver and see if yours has them. Lowering the threshold slightly can solve a drag without you removing a sliver of wood.
If you've got a fixed threshold and it's genuinely too high, or it's warped, that's a bigger job and honestly might be a "replace the threshold" job rather than a "fix the door" job. I'm not going to pretend that's not sometimes the real answer.
Planing the bottom edge
If the door itself needs to come down a little, same rules as planing the side edge, just sideways.
Take the door off the hinges. It's heavy and awkward with two people, worse with one, so get help if you can. Lay it flat across a couple sawhorses or something stable, bottom edge up.
Mark where it's dragging with a pencil, using the threshold or the carpet line as your guide. Then plane in the direction of the wood grain, a little at a time, checking the fit by hanging the door back up every few passes.
That "checking every few passes" part is the whole lesson, honestly.
First door I ever worked on at my old apartment, I skipped that step. Went at the bottom edge with the plane and just kept going, figuring more off was better and I'd get there faster. Hung the door back up, it swung great. Felt like a genius. Then summer came, the wood swelled the way it does when the air's got more moisture in it, and I had a gap at the bottom you could see daylight through. Had to live with a drafty door till winter dried things back out and it wasn't quite as bad. That's the lesson that actually stuck with me, more than any of the ones that went right. Shave less than you think, check twice, and remember the wood's going to move on you with the seasons whether you plane it or not.
Around here especially, dry winters and swings in humidity mean a door that fits perfect in January can bind in July. So err toward taking off less than you think you need, hang it, close it, see how it actually behaves, and go back for another light pass if it's still dragging. Don't try to solve the whole gap in one go.
A word on the bottom corners
If the drag is at the leading bottom corner, the one farthest from the hinges, sometimes that's not a planing problem at all, it's the door sagging slightly on its hinges over time, which pulls that corner down and out. Worth ruling that out before you take wood off, because if the hinges are the real issue, planing just masks it and you'll be back here again in a year.
What you'll need
Same core kit we've talked about. Plane, a pencil, a screwdriver if you've got an adjustable threshold, and patience. Nothing fancy.
One real caution here: a door off its hinges is heavier and more awkward than people expect, and it's easy to bang your knuckles or drop it on a foot. Get a second set of hands if the door's a solid core, and take it slow setting it down and picking it back up.
Before next time
Go check your own doors for drag marks on the carpet or threshold, even ones that aren't bothering you yet. Notice where the wear is before our next lesson, we'll build off that.