Speak Out! 
The Intuitive Carpenter
The Levitating Door
Topping it off
Another trick to hanging a door is getting that perfect, all-round even look . . . making it gentle to the heart. I’ve discovered that a door can have a somewhat larger gap on the bottom, but not the top.
The Many Voices
So, you’ve finally replaced that warped-out door. Everything is clicking properly, but the gap on the top of the door is too wide. It just bugs you. And a voice speaks, “If only that gap was smaller, the door would be perfect.” Being faced with starting over, taking the door off and re-hanging it bugs you even more . . . and a weak, little voice whispers, “It doesn’t look that bad.” Not convinced by this voice, another voice warbles out, “I can live with it . . . can’t I?” You are wavering, and a helpless feeling wraps a cold mantle across your spirit. Next, a voice with authority says, “Hey, even if I re-hang the door, that ugly gap on top might look the same, or, worse, it might end up being too small and make the door stick!”
What to do?
The non-intuitive carpenter will get stuck by these horns of a dilemma . . . but the Intuitive Carpenter finds a solution. First, be it known that when hanging a door it is very important not to install all the hinge screws. Leave some of them out of each hinge plate. Most importantly, the jamb hinge plates. I like to put one in each . . maybe two in the bottom jamb hinge plate, if the door is heavy. This will leave crucial wiggle room that might be useful later on. In this case, it will give you the ability to levitate the door without taking it off the jambs. I have inserted a diagram to help demonstrate how this is done: 
On the jamb hinge plate where there are empty holes you can start a screw at the highest point of the hole. Once this new screw is firmly in place but not fully set, remove the old screw. Then tighten the new screw all the way. The flange of the screw head when fully set will raise the door about a 16th of an inch. Follow this procedure on the remaining jamb hinge plates. If you find that it didn’t raise the door enough, repeat this in the other available screw holes. A back-and-forth process. This will keep moving the door up the jamb and close the gap. Hence, the levitating door! Please note that this process must be performed on all of the jamb hinge plates in tandem to achieve this levitation. On mortised hinges: Just chisel a bit more space above the jamb hinge plate to allow it to move upward. And the strike plate will need some adjusting. But you will find that by this method you can get a perfect top fit to your door installation. You can see that this works in the opposite direction too, but then we couldn't call it levitation . . .
There will be some more tricks to share with you about hanging a door, but enough of doors for now . . . I want to show you how to install shelves on a wall with out any visible means of support. Next: The Ledges of the Mystical Pyramid!
David Aston-Reese (MA Thea., PSU) is currently an artistic director, along with his wife, Elli Michaels, of the Bird-On-A-Cliff Theater Company in Woodstock. As an apprentice in a summer stock theater company, he discovered his Intuitive Carpentry skills. www.bird-on-a-cliff.org