Interior Door Trim and Door Frames

SATURDAY

This weekend the interior door trim and door frame project got underway in earnest.  I was so excited to begin that I could hardly relax and have morning coffee with Red. I traded vehicles with him for the day, and headed out to Home Depot.  To those of you who gave me Home Depot gift cards for my birthday -- thank you!  This is what they purchased....

As an aside, Home Depot only had half of their overhead lights on -- I presume to conserve energy since it's so hot and the electric grid is continually threatened -- but it lent itself to a very different shopping atmosphere... sort of nice...

I finished removing the door trim off the outside of the bedroom door, and was left with the door frame -- entirely freestanding.  All that had been holding it in place and plumb was the trim!  I cannot conceive how it was still plumb, but it was. I guess that is a testament to the sturdiness of my house despite many boards appearing to have been cut with a hatchet...

I carefully removed the door frame intact and stabilized the corners and legs for transport.  At this point I hoped to use it as a pattern for my new frame; size, height, door hardware placement, etc.

Here is the "before" photo of the outside of the bedroom door.  I know -- and I agree -- it doesn't look bad enough here that replacement is required.  But what the photo doesn't show is the just ghastly amount of crusty old paint and painted caulk that is making the whole structure a lumpy, formless goo. 

And here is what it looks like now:

The doorway is positively huge!  It's larger than the door I took down by a good 6 inches in width.  Red and I spent quite a bit of time Saturday afternoon discussing building the opening up to fit the smaller door.  Eventually the obvious occured to him (it never did to me...) and he asked,

"When are you going to build the new door?" 

Me:  Um, sometime when it isn't 110 degrees outside when I'm teaching myself a new project?

Red:  Why don't you just build a larger door, to fit this opening, rather than make the opening smaller?

Me:  Silent stare.  Oh.  Yes, why don't I?

We had both remarked earlier how nice the larger door frame looks -- how spacious it feels.  So why would I enclose that again?  Hmmm.  I'll have to think about that.  And with that, we were off to dinner.

SUNDAY

Sunday morning over coffee I thought about what Red said about making a custom door to fit. I also thought about how spacious the room feels without a door. And then the lightbulb came on: a pocket door! My walls are certainly thick enough (hollow enough) accomodate the hardware and door.  I turned this idea over in my mind during most of the day while I worked...

Immediately adjacent to the door (but not visible in the photograph above) is a little* closet that I use for my vacuum and cleaning supplies.  The trim from both of the doors was compromised in the corner...

It became readily apparent that in working on the bedroom door, I'd need to remove the trim (and about 3 tubes of caulk) from the adjoining cleaning closet door.

Closet door trim removed

That helped me see things more clearly, but I continued and took the door off in anticipation of removing the frame.  This door frame, like the first one, also was not secured by anything other than the door trim.  It did however have a couple of "shims" wedged in.  Not actually attached, mind you, but in place.

Again, utter amazement that the door frame is still plumb.

Where I removed the frame from the bedroom door, there was some goopy white paint on the flooring as well as quite a build up of floor wax and polyeurathane, forming a pretty high ridge. I got my sander and gave it an initial clean up -- it will need more...

"Before"

Right side "after"

Left side "after"

 

Sunday evening I did some online research on pocket doors -- pros and cons and what quality issues to watch for, and watched a couple of installation videos.  I'm fairly certain it's the route I want to go.  Installation would require me to remove a few feet of sheetrock, but I am okay with that.  I looked at pocket doors at Home Depot, but am going to look elsewhere; I wasn't pleased with what they offered.  I was going to do some online searches today (Monday) but since I neglected to take measurements this morning it will have to wait.

The bummer is, until I think this part through, I'm sort of at a standstill on this project unless I want to demo more door frames before this one is resolved... and I do not.  I am already sleeping with a compressor in my bedroom (who else do you know who does that?), and lots of construction tools etc. are in my guest room.  Probably best not to not go completely crazy before I finish the first one...

More updates to come!

*Mostly it's "little" because there is an old furnace chimney coming up from the crawlspace that hogs most of the closet space.  Word on the street is that every house in the area has one, and it has asbestos in it.  Consequently they have been left alone for the most part.  Mine is wallpapered!  Makes me laugh.  It also makes me want to rip it out. 

Slight Rain Barrel Detour...

Before I delve into what I expect will be a lengthy post recapping this weekend's interior trim and door frame project... a quick post about some rain barrel progress...

I reached a stand-still this weekend on the inside project, and in my endeavor to keep moving I decided to pour the second (of three) rain barrel pads.  This one is on the front of my carport. 

A wee bit precarious

It was a little trickier to frame and level the form due to obstacles; there was some old concrete from when they poured my carport that I guess had oozed out between the form planks.  There was a tree root which interfered with leveling... and there was a fence corner where my fence juts out to allow space for a neighbor's tree.  The good news is, I was still able to use the form from the first pad that I poured.  I had to notch out for the tree root, and it took a lot more work to get it level than the first one.

After I got it framed and stabilized, I placed the criss-cross of rebar in the middle, and went to Home Depot and bought 3 - 60 pound bags of concrete.  Three bags is what the last form took; in fact I had extra -- but as it turns out, I should have bought 4 for this form.  Alas. 

I mixed it up in my favorite tangerine orange wheel barrow and heaved it into the form, smoothed it out, and confirmed I was all still level -- the form and the resulting concrete, since it fell below the form frame.

Then I got ambitious and decided to paint this barrel and the one on the back corner of my carport (both are bright blue recycled food containers).  First I removed all the adhesive labels -- which pulled off dreamily easily -- have you ever bought a clay pot where the price tag was on the top lip and it shreds when you try to remove?  Hello?  Why don't they put those on the bottom?  Ugh! 

Then I scrubbed down both barrels with a 1:1 mixture of vinegar and water to remove the dirt.  I had some primer (Kilz 1-2-3 Professional) left over from my culvert planters* so I put a coat of that on both barrels and while that dried I headed to Home Depot for some terra cotta colored spray paint.  Which they did not have.  They had something called "cinnamon" but it wasn't quite right.  I ended up with sort of a khaki color -- it's fine.  It may even be better...

I figure I can always paint over it if I change my mind.  It is recommended that I apply 2 coats of polyurathane over the final color.  I haven't done that yet.  But may I just say -- yowser! what a shockingly huge improvement over that blinding blue!

At some point maybe I'll get crazy and do a colorful design.  Here are a couple photos of some barrels I found online...

Photo courtesy of Cobb County Watershed Stewardship Program, Cobb County, Georgia

But as I've learned -- first with the culvert project and now with these -- it's a lot more surface area than you think it is when you begin painting!  Ha ha  So... maybe not.

At any rate, I'll look forward to the pad setting up and getting the newly painted barrel back in place.  It will sure look better looking down my driveway from the street too!  I have one left to do -- the one on the front corner of my house.  That barrel just emptied yesterday.  (That leaves me just two partial barrels of water left.  C'mon, rain!)

*The last of which you can see in the background of the photo above -- I can't decide where to put it, and until I decide where to put it I can't determine final paint color...so there it waits, primed... 

Mildly Amusing

Today I did more online reading about building your own door frames, and for fun, installing pre-hung doors.  I also watched a handful of videos of installations.  The first thing they all said to do?  Put a level on your header, and make sure that it is, indeed, level before you attach your new door frame to it.

Header?  Yeah.  I don't have one of those.

I can see clear through to the other side, no obstruction .  Guess I'll be doing a bit of retro-fitting... Probably not the last time.

Stepping Up to the Edge

Two days after proclaiming that I am taking the door frame plunge, I've still just put my big toe in the water.  My suit is dry.  But I've done more research, more questions have been asked and answered, more decisions made, and now I'm firmly committed to a plan.  I am not sheetrocking the entire wall and I am building my own door frames. 

Yesterday I got out my big Do It Yourself hardcover book my very handy sister (she even does her own plumbing!) gave me for my housewarming and read about hanging doors.  Picked up a few good tips.

Then I went to Home Depot to look at pre-hung doors.  A part of me admitted that if they suited my needs and were reasonably priced (they were -- about $60) I may relent and buy one instead of building one, but there were many reasons they were wrong: 

1)  The jamb wasn't wide enough so I'd still have the same issue;

2)  The wood that the jamb was made of was pieced and not matching -- clearly meant to be painted not stained;

3)  The door was hollow (which seems to equate poor quality) and just a plain flat box -- not the style of the house;

4)  The hinges were brass, not brushed nickel.  Granted, those could be changed out, but it's additional hassle and expense.

It was a worthwhile trip, though because I could examine the whole gizmo closely with an eye on re-creating it at home.  Again, I'll say, gosh, it doesn't look like there is that much to it -- but I am positive that I must be missing the finer details and underestimating the required engineering...

I had a guy in the door section of Home Depot answering my questions and trying to troubleshoot with me, and eventually he said, "Are you doing all this work yourself?"  I replied that I was.*  His reply"  "Wow.  That's cool."  (Which from my perspective sounded like, "Wow.  You're crazy.") 

Red asked me if I plan to re-hang the doors that are currently hung.  You know, re-hang the white ones with 81 years of paint on them into my new beautifully stained door frames?  Unfortunately, yes, that's my plan for now.  I do plan to learn how to make interior doors, but it just too freakin' hot outside to spent that much time outdoors right now.  I thought about just not putting all the doors back up -- but that's probably not realistic.  I need the bedroom door for the dog/alarm system, I need the bathroom door for obvious reasons, the swinging kitchen door (I know, I know:  swinging.  Won't THAT one be a fun one to tackle?  I'm in total denial about that one) I need for the dog -- so ultimately that wouldn't be a workable plan.  I'm also toying with the idea of pocket doors or sliding barn doors... but I haven't devoted enough thought to them yet to have an intelligent conversation about them. 

I'll admit that the project is a tiny bit daunting. But I'll just as readily say that I am positive that I can figure it out. (Thanks mom, thanks dad -- somehow you raised me to have such confidence!)  And this guy assures me that it's all in a day's work on the job site -- and just look how happy he is!

* Unless I can make it appear so intriguing that Red can't resist jumping in.

Taking the Plunge

I've stood around and stared at my door frame and associated door jamb several times in the last few days.  Sounds exciting doesn't it?  Well, it IS sort of hot here... and staring at a door jamb and thinking is about the peak level of activity you can do without sweating.

The upshot is that I've decided to take the plunge and take on the whole door jamb replacement.  My famous last words -- it just doesn't look like it would be that difficult.

My next steps?

1)  Dig around in my memory bank and in my shop and determine what stain I used on the baseboards to ensure that the trim matches.  There's a chance I wrote it down in my "home book" that I keep.  If not, I know I have some leftover stain cans in the shop, and some leftover pieces of lumber, so I'll do a few test pieces and see what matches.

2)  Now that I have a new plan of attack, I need to re-evaluate the need for sheetrock filler.  I think I will still need it. 

A tiny part of me is tempted to go ahead and re-sheetrock the whole wall, and put in insulation at the same time. With just filling in the gap I'm still going to have the unfortunate sheetrock seam right along side the new trim.  And while I'm told that interior walls rarely have insulation, I'd like some just for noise insulation.  Of course that brings up the whole wall texturing issue... Oy.  But my walls have minimal texture anyway, and...?  Uff da.  I don't know about that part.  (And don't they sell something you mix into your paint for minimal texture?  Couldn't I just do that?)

3)  Buy the estimated project supplies -- just a starter supply -- a few pieces of lumber, the minimum purchase of sheetrock, tape, etc.  My hope is to not have the door frame disassembled for days and days.  If I can have supplies ready, I hope to minimize the chaos.  (Yeah, you can start laughing now.)

4)  Put up about a hundred drop cloths to protect my bedroom chandeliers and bedding from dust. Complete demolition...remove door in a fashion where I have some hope of being able to re-hang it.  Pay special attention to where and how door hanging hardware is installed...  Take photos!  Save all the pieces!

5)  Figure out what the re-assembly process will be.  Measure.  Measure again.

6)  Rip, sand, and stain lumber. Build.  Re-hang door.... Clean up.  Admire.  Possibly brag.

I'll really have the process down to a science by the time I complete all my doors.  I could probably hire myself out on my street doing trim/jamp replacement for the next several months...