It was a long time coming, but finally the bedroom door is all varnished and ready for hanging. I start with putting the hinges on the frame and the door. I bought some antique replacement hinges and they don’t fit exactly into the existing slots on the door and frame. I need to use a file to trim away a little wood to get the replacement hinges to fit. Once I have the hinges attached with a few screws, I test the fit with the door. One of the hinges is about 1/8 of an inch off, so I need to file off some more wood to get the hinges to line up. Once the hinges are in position, I put the rest of the screws into place and luckily the door closes nicely without shimming. Next up is attaching the rim lock. After that is lined up to the catch, I screw that in and then finish up with the rest of the door hardware.

The worktable doesn’t stay open for long because now it’s time to tackle the door on the room I’m currently stripping. This door is the same as the other two bedrooms with a rim lock and a wooden doorknob. Everything coated in white paint of course. I apply some chemical stripper to the hinges to start loosening them up, but luckily I’m able to remove the door just by knocking the pins out of the hinges. Once the door is off the frame, it’s a little easier to get access to the hinges to unscrew them.

Once I get all the hardware off the door, I combine that with some of the hardware from the built-in doors and throw all that into the crockpot with some dish detergent. I let that simmer overnight and the next morning I scrape off the paint with dental picks and brass brushes. I get most of the paint off, but will do another treatment to clean up the little flecks still remaining on some of the metal.

With the hardware removed, next is starting stripping of the paint. The first pass is using heat and I’m able to get a good amount of paint off just with that. After the heat is done, I’ll then switch over to chemical stripper.

I do some additional stripping of the built-in drawers but the paint is pretty thick on these doors so I need to keep applying coats of chemical stripper to get down to the bare wood.

Continuing with the stripping theme, I continue using CitriStrip on the ceiling and the stronger stripper on the woodwork in the room. The ceiling is coming along pretty well and there’s only some pockets of paint remaining. The woodwork still needs a bit of work especially around the built-in.