Door hardware

We've been working on all the final stuff in the guest room - window trim, storm windows, and doors. Especially since we have a guest coming this week - we figured he'd like to be able to close the door and have some privacy. So we stripped one side of each door - the POs painted just one side. The two-faced door treatment leads to a two-faced response - both "Yay, they only painted one side!" and "Dammit, why did they paint one side?" Any way you slice it, though, stripping just one side is quicker than both.

Ken heat gunned almost all the paint off, then I cleaned them up and refinished. We installed the main entry door last night. It still needs some tweaking - it ever shut all the way - but it's in. Then we realized that the knob was missing both set screws. Argh, annoying. We took a chilly walk to the hardware store (and coffee store next door) this morning, and even they didn't have the proper set screw. And they usually have all sorts of old fashioned stuff - some of it has been obviously sitting on the shelf since the 1920s! They also have some very cool 1970s vintage stuff - orange sinks, glitzy gold faucets, etc. It's an old, local store.

Luckily, we remembered Crown City Hardware - they make a reproduction of the doorknobs that came with our house* - and they have the exact right set screw (the #10). So we ordered a bunch, assuming we'll find some more missing ones in the future. Thank goodness someone still makes nice things that fit old parts! Damned throw-away society.

The closet door is sitting with its last coat of finish drying this moment - and we'll put it in hopefully tomorrow. Not that the closet interior isn't pretty to look at now...

* We are so, so thankful that nobody got rid of the original doorknobs - there's no way we could possibly afford to replace even a couple of them! They are totally awesome and solid - not like new plasticky ones. Yay for the POs on that.