Travis Larson: Hi, I'm Travis Larson. I'm an Editor for Family Handyman Magazine. In this video I'm going to show you how to take a door off the hinges. Most people do it wrong, believe it or not, but it's really simple and I'm going to show you how.

The reason it's important to take a door off the hinges is you can lay it flat, you'll get a much better painting job if you do that. The other advantage is you can paint the top and the bottom of the door which is important to keep it from warping. So let's show you how to get this thing off the hinges.

You'll need a pin punch or a 16 penny nail, so I'm going to show you how to get this out. Right from the bottom you pound the hinge in up from the bottom. Get them loose at first. You can generally pull them out by hand now, but if you can't you could use the hammer claw, you can prime up that way too.

These happen to come out pretty easy. Then it's a simple matter pulling off the door knob and taking the hinges off the doors so you don't have to cut around them when you're painting. We are using a screw gun with a number 2 bid in it, most cases that would just be enough. Now that we've removed the hinges it's time to get the door ready to paint. First start with getting the doorknob off and then drive screws at both ends of the door, two at one end and one in the very center of the other end. So we can hang those screw heads from two sawhorses and here is the trick, you paint one side, pick it up, rotate it, lay it back down, and voila! You don't have to wait for the other side to drive before getting started on the other one.

That's how you get a door ready for painting.