Door Installation & Finish Carpentry in Toronto & the GTA
Doors that stick, drag or won’t latch, missing trim, tired baseboards or a shelf you’ve been meaning to build — our carpenters handle it. We hang and adjust interior doors, install casing and baseboard, and build clean, square finish carpentry.
FixitPlus handles interior door installation, sticking and misaligned doors, door hardware, casing, baseboard, quarter round, closet shelving and finish carpentry across Toronto and the GTA — including hand-fitting doors to the out-of-square openings common in older GTA homes.
Doors and trim are the details you touch and see every single day, which is exactly why worn ones make a home feel run-down. A door that sticks in the summer, drags on the carpet, won’t latch, or swings open on its own; missing or damaged baseboards; gaps in the casing; a closet you can’t quite close — these small carpentry issues add up to a home that feels a little tired. FixitPlus fixes and builds the doors, trim and finish carpentry that make a house feel solid and cared for.
On the door side, we hang new interior doors, replace old ones, adjust and re-align doors that stick or won’t latch, plane and re-hinge as needed, fix and replace hardware, install door stops and closers, and sort out closet, bifold and barn doors that have come out of alignment. Whether it’s one bedroom door that’s driven you crazy for years or a full set of new interior doors for a refresh, we’ll get them hanging true, latching cleanly and closing quietly.
On the carpentry side, we handle the finish work that gives rooms their crispness: baseboards, casing and trim, crown moulding, chair rail and wainscoting, window and door surrounds, and built-in shelving. We also build and install storage — closet shelving, garage shelving, floating shelves and simple built-ins — square, level and solidly anchored. Coming from a custom-home background, our carpenters care about tight joints, clean reveals and finishes that look intentional, not improvised.
Finish carpentry lives or dies on the details — mitres that close tightly, scribes that follow an out-of-square wall, reveals that stay consistent, and caulk-and-fill work that leaves everything paint-ready. That’s the standard we bring to even small jobs. We measure carefully, cut precisely, fasten cleanly, and leave the work ready to paint or already finished, so the result looks like it was always part of the house rather than added later.
What a doors & carpentry visit covers
Door and carpentry work we take on:
What makes a door hang true and trim stay tight
Door installation in Toronto is rarely about the door itself. It is about an opening that has been settling for decades, a floor that has been replaced twice, and walls that are not quite flat. Good trim carpentry absorbs all of that, so the door swings, latches and stays where you leave it, and the trim looks as if the house was built square. This is the part of our carpentry services that never shows when it is done right.
The hinge jamb sets everything
The hinge side of the frame is set first, and set plumb in both directions — across its face and along its edge. If it leans, the door drifts open or swings shut on its own however carefully it was cut. In older openings where the framing itself has moved, we shim the jamb plumb inside the rough opening rather than following the framing, and let the casing cover the difference. The test afterwards is the reveal: an even gap, about the thickness of a coin, from the top hinge down the latch side and across the head.
Shims behind every hinge, and one long screw
A jamb held only with finishing nails flexes every time the door closes. We shim solidly behind each hinge and at the strike, then swap one short screw in the top hinge for a long one driven through the shim into the stud. That screw pulls the head of the jamb tight, and on an existing door it is often what closes the gap at the top of the latch side without planing anything.
Undercuts, return air and hollow-core limits
In a forced-air home, many rooms depend on the gap under the door to let air flow back to the return. Cut a new door tight to a new floor and the room turns stuffy, and the door may pull itself shut when the furnace runs. We measure the undercut from the finished floor, rugs included. Hollow-core doors have only a narrow solid rail at the top and bottom, so a deep trim can cut into the hollow; past that point the rail has to be glued back in.
Trim profiles in older Toronto homes
Baseboard in many pre-war Toronto houses is built up from several pieces — a tall flat board, a cap moulding and a shoe — and the casings are wider and thicker than anything stocked today. Matching it usually means combining stock profiles, having a short run milled, or reusing original lengths salvaged from a closet or a room being changed. On plaster walls the trim also follows a surface that rolls, so we scribe and fasten more often rather than force a straight board flat.
Coped inside corners stay closed
An inside corner cut as two mitres looks fine on installation day, then opens into a dark line once the heating season dries the wood and the framing shifts. A coped joint — one piece run square into the corner, the other cut to the exact outline of its profile — stays tight because it can slide rather than open. Outside corners are mitred, glued and pinned, and every length of baseboard installation is nailed into studs and the bottom plate, not just the drywall.
Closet bifold and bypass hardware
Bifold doors hang from a top pivot, sit on a bottom pivot bracket and run a guide in the overhead track. Most bifolds that jump the track have a worn guide or a bottom pivot that has drifted, and both adjust or replace easily. Bypass doors ride on rollers at the top with a guide on the floor; heavy mirrored panels wear out plastic rollers, and the right replacement hardware, set to the correct height, is often all a sliding closet needs.
Signs it is time to call about doors & carpentry
Time to call when:
A door sticks or won’t latch
Doors shift with the seasons and the house — a proper adjustment or re-hang fixes it for good.
Trim is missing or damaged
Gaps in baseboards and casing make a room feel unfinished; matching and installing new trim ties it back together.
You need storage built
Closet, garage or floating shelving built and anchored properly adds real, usable space.
You’re updating a room
New doors, fresh trim or added moulding give a refresh the crisp, finished edge that paint alone can’t.
The door and trim mistakes we get called to fix
- 1A sagging door planed down on the latch side when the real problem was stripped hinge screws. It closes for a season, sags again, and now has a visible gap along the edge.
- 2A pre-hung door nailed in without shims at the hinges and strike, so the jamb bows as the fasteners pull it and the latch never quite meets the strike plate.
- 3The cut top and bottom edges of a new door left unsealed. In a bathroom or over a cool basement floor, bare edges take on moisture and the door swells or its skin starts to lift.
- 4Mitred inside corners on baseboard that open into dark lines by the first winter.
- 5Baseboard nailed only into drywall between studs, which works loose and pulls away from the wall the first few times a vacuum bumps it.
- 6Quarter round nailed down into a floating floor instead of into the baseboard, pinning the planks so they buckle when they try to expand.
How we handle doors & carpentry
How a carpentry visit runs:
Measure and plan
We assess the door or space, measure carefully, and confirm materials and the finished look with you.
Prep and fit
We remove old work where needed, then cut and dry-fit so joints close tight and everything sits square and level.
Fasten and align
We fasten cleanly, align doors so they latch and swing true, and set reveals consistent.
Fill, caulk and finish
We fill fastener holes, caulk gaps, and leave it paint-ready — or finished to match on request.
Doors & Carpentry in Toronto, York Region, Peel & Durham
The same door or trim job reads differently across the GTA. Older Toronto houses, from pre-war semis to post-war bungalows, have plaster walls, openings that have settled out of square and original built-up trim, so doors are usually fitted as slabs and new trim is matched rather than swapped room by room. Toronto condos bring fire-rated suite entry doors with self-closers, which the building controls and which should never be cut down or altered, plus metal-stud partitions that need the right fasteners for trim and shelving. York Region subdivisions in Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Markham, Newmarket and Aurora have tall interior doors, two-storey foyers and builder-grade MDF casing that is easy to match. Across Peel and Durham, the 1970s and 1980s homes of Mississauga, Brampton and Pickering tend to need closet doors back on their tracks and hollow-core doors replaced, while newer Brampton and Ajax subdivisions mostly need doors re-adjusted as the framing dries out.
Not listed? We cover the whole Greater Toronto Area.
Builder brains on every job
Builder-grade joints
Tight mitres, clean scribes and consistent reveals — the details that separate finish carpentry from a rushed job.
Doors that just work
We get doors hanging true, latching cleanly and closing quietly, not just rehung and hoped for.
Square, solid storage
Shelving and built-ins are level, anchored and built to actually hold what you put on them.
Paint-ready finish
Filled, caulked and tidy — ready for paint or finished to match the room.
Doors & Carpentry pricing — honest and flat-rate
Carpentry is quoted by scope. The main drivers:
What affects the price
How handyman quoting works in general — hourly, flat rate and day blocks compared: How much does a handyman cost in Toronto?
Slab or pre-hung? Choosing doors and trim for door installation in Toronto
Every interior door installation starts with one decision: replace just the door (a slab), or the door already hung in a new frame (pre-hung). The right answer depends less on the door you like than on the opening it’s going into — and openings vary a lot between an older Toronto home, a 1990s subdivision house and a condo.
Not sure which you need? Send photos of the door, the frame and the floor beneath it, and we’ll recommend slab or pre-hung before you order anything.
Slab: keep the frame, fit the door
A slab reuses your existing jamb and casing, so there’s no disturbance to trim or drywall. It suits older homes with solid original frames and openings that are slightly out of square or non-standard in size. The slab is cut, planed and mortised to match — hand-fitting where trim carpentry experience shows.
Pre-hung: new frame, clean reset
A pre-hung unit arrives with jamb and hinges attached. It’s the better choice when the old frame is damaged, the opening is changing size, or the casing is being replaced anyway. In newer subdivision homes with standard openings it often goes in fastest.
Hollow-core or solid-core
Hollow-core doors are light and fine for closets. Solid-core doors block noticeably more sound — worth it for bedrooms, home offices and condo suites — but their weight needs solid hinges screwed into the framing.
Handing and undercut
Doors are ordered left- or right-handed by the way they swing, and it’s easy to get wrong; send photos from both sides and we’ll confirm. Leave room underneath for new flooring and for return airflow in forced-air homes.
Trim that suits the room
For baseboard installation, MDF is smooth and paints well in dry rooms, but it swells if it gets wet. In basements, laundry rooms and bathrooms, primed pine or a PVC profile is the safer choice. Stain-grade hardwood is for trim that will be stained, not painted.
Planning your doors & carpentry job
Written by Alan from work we do every week in GTA homes and condos:
How to Hire a Handyman in Toronto and the GTA: Questions to Ask, Insurance, WSIB and Red Flags10 min read · Read the guide →
What Can a Handyman Do? 25 Jobs Handled in One Visit (GTA)8 min read · Read the guide →
How Much Does a Handyman Cost in Toronto? Hourly vs Flat-Rate8 min read · Read the guide →Doors & Carpentry — common questions
Usually, yes. Most sticking, dragging or non-latching doors just need re-aligning, planing or re-hinging — a fraction of the cost of a new door. We’ll only recommend replacement if the door itself is damaged or beyond adjustment.
We do our best to match your existing baseboard and casing profiles so new work blends in. If an exact match is discontinued, we’ll show you the closest options before installing.
Yes — from simple closet and garage shelving to floating shelves and straightforward built-ins. For elaborate custom millwork, we’ll scope it as a small carpentry project and quote accordingly.
Always. We fill fastener holes, caulk the gaps and leave everything paint-ready — or we can prime and paint it to match the room if you’d prefer.
Almost always because the hinge side of the frame is out of plumb, so gravity pulls the door one way or the other. On an existing door we can usually correct it by shimming behind a hinge, adjusting the hinge leaves or driving a long screw into the framing. If the whole frame has twisted, re-setting the jamb is the lasting fix. A door that only misbehaves in summer or winter points to the house moving with the seasons.
After, for hardwood, tile, laminate and vinyl plank. The baseboard then sits on the finished floor and covers the expansion gap floating floors need at the walls, with shoe moulding or quarter round added where the floor undulates. Carpet is the exception: baseboard goes in first, held slightly above the subfloor so the carpet can tuck beneath it. If you are replacing floors and trim together, we sequence the work so neither trade undoes the other.
A single pre-hung interior door replacing an old one in a standard opening usually takes a few hours, casing included. A slab fitted to an existing frame can take longer, because the hinge mortises and latch bore have to be cut to match the old positions exactly. A full floor of new doors, with casing and hardware, is generally a day or more. We give you a realistic time window along with the flat-rate quote.
A barn door, yes, and a pocket door once we have checked the wall. A barn-door track carries the full weight of the door, so it is fastened into solid framing or a header board fixed across the studs, never into drywall alone. A pocket door means opening the wall to fit a frame inside it, which only works where the wall is not load-bearing and nothing runs through the pocket’s path. We confirm that before quoting.
Alan
Project Manager, FixitPlus Inc.
Scope and technical detail on this page is set by Alan, FixitPlus project manager, drawing on 20+ years of custom-home building in the GTA. Where a job legally requires a licensed trade or a permit, we say so on the page rather than in the small print.
- 20+ years of custom-home building across the GTA
- Project manager on new builds, additions and whole-home renovations
- Single point of contact on every FixitPlus job
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