One of this summer’s big projects has been painting doors and trim upstairs as well as downstairs. After some years the white yellows and it was definitely time for a fresh coat. Before Martin and Wille went to Skåne we took the doors to the loo and stairs off and while they were away I worked like a mad person so it would be ready by the time they got back. Door-less loo is not family fun.
The first thing to do was to remove the old handles. I also considered changing the locks because we’d had problems with the handles “dropping”. New locks would cost $75 dollars each though and I wasn’t really keen on spending that OR the fact that the new locks weren't the right size and I’d have to do a fair bit of drilling and carpentry OR the fact that original is always nicer than new.
Imagine my joy and surprise when I went to the lock smiths and he didn’t automatically sell me those new locks but instead offered me two little do-dads to insert into the locks for a grand total of $2.
Since the holes for the lock plates were really worn and some screws kept falling out on the old handles I used my new best friend Mr Chemical Metal. I love this dude! I’ve tried to fill these types of holes before with wood filler but with all the pulling and pushing of the handles they’ve come loose again. This is much much stronger. It’s stinky business and you need to get a smooth finish within the five minute time frame before it hardens as it’s difficult to sand but it works so well.
After a sanding and wiping session I needed to come up with a way to paint the doors on both sides without having to wait for one side to dry so I came up with this solution. We have these two work horses and I clamped the backs of the doors into them while resting on some strips of wood so paint wouldn’t puddle at the bottom. I then primed and painted everything, three coats in all. Well, I didn’t really paint everything, I left out the little areas where the doors were clamped and touched that up when we got them back upstairs.
I had been dreading this painting session and it did take a while but imagine the time it would have taken to wait for one side to dry and cure before being able to paint the other! Oh, the reason why I didn’t leave the doors up and paint them upstairs was due to our feline family members who would have been walking past all the time… So didn’t want any of their cute little hairs in my fresh paint.
I kept busy in between coats too. The locks had previously been painted over and I didn’t want to add another layer so I removed the paint with paint stripper. I very rarely use this stuff, I usually just soak whatever metal I need to remove the paint off in hot soapy water but I couldn’t really dunk the locks, could I?
Check this out! It is kind of magical. After a few minutes the paint starts to crease and bubble and you can easily scrape it off. I used my favorite tool for this!
After having wiped off the last of the old paint and stripper this is how the locks ended up looking. I like!
So it was time for new handles. We had a jumble of different ugly handles on the doors upstairs when we moved in twelve years ago and ended up buying new modern ones for the four doors. I regretted that purchase almost immediately after and have been lusting over repro ones that match the original ones on the inner front door above ever since.
Finally! It was a bit of a splurge with our currently strained ecomomy but now that they are up it was so incredibly worth it (here's a link to the store where I got the handles).
Hey! How’re you doin’? Pretty good looking huh?? I did for a second or three consider a Bakelite white version but am super happy with these. They are so nice to the touch!
And that completes one of the projects I’ve been most eager to check off my to-do list this summer.
