Hi. First post on here! Was looking to change the door handles on all our interior doors in the house. But the ones I want to change them too are the small circular handles, whilst the current ones are longer. Therefore the screw holes for the old handles would still be visible. Would I be able to fill these holes with 'painters mate' and then just paint over them? All advice welcome. Many thanks.
Are the doors painted? If they are a more substantial filler would be better like Tou Pre interior, Tetrion etc or even a 2 part epoxy filler such as Decafil, however this would probably require the doors to be repainted to make a good job of it. You can use painters mate but it will stick out like a sore thumb!
They are small holes, Stewie, so use a good quality 'setting' wood filler like Astra says. Fill the holes deeply, and then wipe over with the filling knife (or whatevs) to ensure it also fills any chips/splits in the wood surrounding the holes, leaving it all slightly proud. When fully hardened, sand with 600 grit on a flat block so's it's all perfectly flat. Prime and paint.
My preference would be to get small slivers of timber, or matchsticks, coat in a suitable glue and tap into the holes. Leave to dry, trim flush and sand. Prime and paint.
Tricky to get that perfect, tho'? End grain versus long. And there's almost bound to be some little gaps/splits around the holes that will need a teeny touch of filler anyways.
its not the only issue. if the lever handles were fitted close to the door edge, you may well find that the new knobbies are not so easy to operate, being too tight to the stop on one side. you might think about moving outwards a bit. again not so easy a new bigger hole appears, where the handle once was.
Another elongated post for a rather simple fix but,,,, if ya don't know, then fair enough Many ways to skin a cat - just ask the Koreans !!! You may also find that if the handle has been tightly screwed to the door, then an outline of the backplate may be visible as it can mark the wood and/ paint layers. Just depends on what kind of finish you want and how perfect an end result your after. May only be a few small screw holes to fill and paint but what's the overal condition of the doors like ? If a few scuffs and scrapes then may be worth prepping and painting the complete door. More work for sure but possibly a better end result
wood putty can be an option before painting the doors. Just fill it and scrap off the extra. Leave to dry and finally paint. You could also specifically use tourpret repair filler.