Much of our September spare time revolved around restoring the old house's
original vestibule doors, and I am happy to report that the doors have officially been installed. I feel I must qualify this statement though; these lovely doors still need help.
I will not give you every detail, but I will tell you that finding nearly 100 year old hardware to fit the doors was not easy. We've learned a few things along the way; for example, to remove layers of paint from
old brass hinges, soak them in ammonia overnight. It really works! If you Google it, there are other methods, but this worked great for us. And you know how you can go to a big, box store and buy nicely packaged, sets of door hardware?... not the case here. Every door is a little different, as is every piece of hardware.
After getting the doors up, we realized the stationary door is too tight. We don't get overly frustrated about stuff like this anymore, as we have come to expect complications with every old house project.
This particular issue is settling. The old house has settled just enough that we are not able to close this door. It is not my favorite thing to do, but planing a door is something we have much experience with.
We hope to get some time to work on it this weekend- I'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, here's the before and a few progress photos:
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original vestibule doors, and I am happy to report that the doors have officially been installed. I feel I must qualify this statement though; these lovely doors still need help.
I will not give you every detail, but I will tell you that finding nearly 100 year old hardware to fit the doors was not easy. We've learned a few things along the way; for example, to remove layers of paint from
old brass hinges, soak them in ammonia overnight. It really works! If you Google it, there are other methods, but this worked great for us. And you know how you can go to a big, box store and buy nicely packaged, sets of door hardware?... not the case here. Every door is a little different, as is every piece of hardware.
After getting the doors up, we realized the stationary door is too tight. We don't get overly frustrated about stuff like this anymore, as we have come to expect complications with every old house project.
This particular issue is settling. The old house has settled just enough that we are not able to close this door. It is not my favorite thing to do, but planing a door is something we have much experience with.
We hope to get some time to work on it this weekend- I'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, here's the before and a few progress photos:
 |
| - when we moved in - view photos in previous post here - |
 | ||
| - left door is the stationary door - it will close a little more than that, but not much - |
.JPG) |
| - from the other side - |
 |
| - wood that was used a long time ago to fill in the hinge mortises - kinda cool, right? - |
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