Hanging a Door

More door work on the schedule for this weekend with a final coat of satin Waterlox on the closet door. I apply that with t-shirt material and let it dry overnight. Then the next morning, I re-attach the brass latch to get ready to hang the door.

Last coat of Waterlox.

I attach my replacement antique hinges to the door frame and then to the door. It’s a little tricky with the slotted screws and using a drill because the bit slips out, showing the reason why slotted screws were abandoned in favor of Phillips and other screw types. I mess up the orientation of the hinges on the door and end up having to flip them over and re-attach.

Attaching the hinges to the frame.

I finally get all the hinges on and then install the door. Things are close, but they don’t quite line up. It must be the replacement hinges messing up the dimensions so I start with shimming the bottom hinge a little because it’s binding against the frame. After that, I still have some rubbing at the top of the door, so I sand the top down until the door closes without scraping. I re-coat the top with stain after I had sanded the color off. Last, the latch catch on the door frame doesn’t quite line up with the latch so I need to remove that and move it up about a 1/4 of an inch. After all this fussing, I get the door working. While I’m here, I install the pushbutton bakelite switch cover.

New old stock pushbutton cover.

Hung door.

One door down and one to go, but while I revisit the main door, I keep applying stripper to the paint in the next room. The old paint in this room is definitely stubborn and I need to keep breaking it down with layer after layer of stripper followed by scraping.

Breaking down the layers of paint.

Wall on the left is mostly stripped while back wall still has ways to go.

For the main door, I continue sanding off the poorly applied finish using sandpaper and steel wool lubricated with mineral spirits. I’m about done with getting all the blotchy stain from the door.

Sanding away the tacky and blotchy stain.

While I was hanging the closet door, I was peeking around the interior which also needs some work. Mostly there’s holes from the HVAC being removed. Some of the repairs will need a stud patched, and others just need to be closed up. Since this is a closet, I’m not going for a full three coat plaster and will just go with sheetrock. But before I do that, I decide to strip down the shelf in the closet. I start with the SpeedHeater to get the paint off, followed by chemical stripper.

Before starting stripping, the paint is already flaking off.

Stripping things off with heat.

Bouncing back to the door, I do a final sanding and then wipe down with mineral spirits and a tack cloth. After that dries, I go with another coat of stain, but this time I keep the door horizontal and I continue wiping it down to allow the oil stain to not pool up like the previous coat.

Most of the bad stain is sanded down.

After applying stain.

After wiping off the excess stain.

Back to the closet shelf, after the chemical stripper and lots of scouring, next up is washing down the wood with TSP and water. After that dries, I do some sanding with 80 and 150 grit sandpaper.

Sanding a board.

Back in the room, as I get things down to the plaster, I then follow that up with washing the wall down with TSP and water. The progress in here is very slow because this old paint is not giving up easily.

Back wall is starting to be stripped to plaster.

Various levels of stripped wall.

After sanding the closet shelf, I wipe down the wood with turpentine. I’ll let that sit until next time and then I’ll do another sanding and start applying linseed oil to rejuvenate the wood.

After applying turpentine.

Door looks good with antique light fixture.