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. 

Door Frame Dilemma

I was all excited last night for a trip to Home Depot to get sheetrock and related supplies, and some 1"x4"s in anticipation of starting the installation of the new door frame trim in my bedroom.  Red came over and we stood in front of the trimless door frame to conjure up a plan.  Hmmm.

We concluded that when the trim and sheetrock was originally installed (we shall not guess what year that was...) that the trim was installed first, and then they sheetrocked around it.  Having done it that way means that the sheetrock butts up against the edge of the trim, as opposed to the trim laying on top of the sheetrock.

This photo shows that the trim was 3.5" inches wide -- precisely the gap left between the door jamp and the edge of the sheetrock. (The measure shows 4, but you can see that my tape wasn't flush against the jamb on the left.)

I want the trim to go on top of the sheetrock so that I get a cleaner look.  My plan was to add a vertical strip of sheetrock and then affix the trim on top of that.  But when I do that, the sheetrock bumps my trim out away from the jamb and gives me a gap.  Here I am holding a scrap piece of 1"x 6" up along the door for illustration (my finished trim will not be that wide.)

And, the resulting gap on the side

We talked about moving the door jamb over/out to match the sheetrock, but that only leaves me with the same issue on the other side of the door. 

Also complicating things is that I was going to use 1"x4"s for the trim -- which in reality would give me the 3.5" trim.  But that isn't wide enough to cover up the would-be new sheetrock seam; the seam would be right next to the edge of the trim.  Does that matter?  Maybe not.  Is it optimal?  Definitely not.  So I may have to rip 1"x6" into 4" trim and have my trim a bit wider than I wanted.  (My baseboards are 6" but I think that would look too heavy around doors.)

Then Red suggested since I'll be ripping the boards anyway, to rip a narrow piece to insert behind the trim to fill the gap.  Here I am holding a random block of wood up to illustrate (obviously the final product would be the same stain... ahem.)

Yes, for a while it will be natural wood trim against a painted door jamb; not the most asethetically pleasing scenario, but hey it's a work in progress.  I don't know how to build new doors and jambs yet... although perhaps I should tackle all that now... hmmm.

We also talked through whether or not pulling down all the sheetrock on that wall and re-sheetrocking it would solve the problem, but it doesn't seem to.  When we arrive at the door frame, we're in the same situation.

We also talked about re-building the door jamb, and using a 1"x 8" rather a 1"x 6"... or possibly ripping it down so that it's 1" x 7" -- but then I'm back to doing the door jambs and doors before I am really ready for all that. 

Do all doors (pun intended) lead to just a total door trim, door jamb and new door project on a doorway by doorway basis vs. doing the trim now and the jambs and new doors later?  Inquiring minds want to know.



Moving Indoors

Okay I give.  Heat, you have outlasted me. 

This weekend I pulled up the remaining contents of my raised garden beds, except for my hot peppers and my basil that still producing.  Gone are the 8 foot sunflowers, and the cucumbers, which were the last hangers-on.  Gone are the sugar baby melon vines, and birdhouse gourd vines.  I still have my herbs --scattered about in various places -- my backyard butterfly bed is still doing well, and I am still tending to my raspberry canes and asparagus.  They both produce next year; they weren't expected to this year.  I have to say, it's sort of a relief to not have so much to water...

I also gave my front butterfly bed some much needed TLC, and got it spruced up a bit.  I need to add some fresh mulch.

So -- I'm moving to indoor projects for August.  First up?  Interior door trim and I suppose by default, interior door frames.

If you've been following along, you know that I've already removed and replaced all the old baseboards.  You can read the final post on that here:  http://my1929tudor.blogspot.com/2009/08/baseboards-progress-completed.html. 

I've long wanted to tackle the door frames, but other interior projects kept line jumping.  I also had some fantasy that the door frame project could encompass new windows, wall insulation* and new sheetrock, on a room-by-room basis.  I think I will save the new sheetrock for new windows -- there is no point in doing all new sheetrock around those very old windows -- and move ahead on the door frames.  Although I suppose that once I start pulling off door frames, I could get inspired to do the whole wall and add insulation on the walls that do not contain windows. I know for sure that at some sheetrocking will be involved in the door frame project anyway.

Here is Exhibit A -- the door trim on the inside-side of the master bedroom:

And before you strain your eyes trying to read the blue sign, here's a close up:

It's true!  New shoes cure most ailments.  But I digress --

The door frame photo is looking out of my bedroom into the short hallway.  To the right is the bathroom, and you are looking into the guest room.  (I don't know what that vertical swath of lighter color white is on the wall; it's some sort of trick of light; it's not really like that.)  I won't even guess how many layers of paint are on the trim -- and in most cases on the door hinges.  (Some day I am going to teach myself how to make new interior doors... Have you ever priced solid wood doors?  Ridiculous.)  And of course, many layers are lead based paint - awesome!  (Not.)  Here is a close up:

At some point, the edge of the trim sunk into the sheetrock -- like it is tipped back -- so you literally cannot find the edge of the wood.  The baseboards were like that as well, and when we took the old ones off we found that the sheetrock didn't extend all the way under the baseboards, so there wasn't anything supporting the wood.  I think that is what is going on here as well.  So, I'll dig the wood trim out, then add a new strip of sheetrock, tape, bed, and then add the new trim.  I used 1" x 6" boards for the baseboards, and my plan is to use 1" x 3" boards for the trim.  I'll stain them, but I am not going to route them; I prefer the clean lines.  I am hoping that I can get away without texturing the new sheetrock, but I'll have to see how it all turns out before I make that decision.  Certainly if I decide to re-sheetrock the whole wall I've have to texture and I can't say that that prospect is appealing to me... 

I'll keep you posted on my progress... if you have any advice or experience, please, share.

*  And by wall insulation I mean "some" not "new" or "additional."