Rehabber’s Rehab

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This weekend I finally finished the first in the great door reclaimation project, our bedroom door, which I’ve been working on since the Martin’s were here last.  All the doors are now down but the most important one (the bathroom of course).  All I can say is that doors are a lot bigger than the trim I’ve been stripping so far, and that there is a lot more of them than you think there is.  And they have two sides.  Ugh.  Far more time consuming than my previous projects.

Although it is just the two of us, in our house we are so close to your neighbors that you need the privacy a door can give you.  Especially since we have no blinds up since we’ve taken down all of the trim that you could hang them on.  We have one spot in our bedroom that you can stand in to get dressed in without being in the line of sight of either of our neighbors, and we’ve definitely gotten tired of sneaking around in our own house.

I started by removing all the hardware from the door and throwing it in a bucket, screws and all, since I didn’t want to lose any of it.  Then it was time to bring out the trusty ole’ heat gun and to strip the paint off the flat outside and inside portion of the panels on the side of the door that faced into the bedroom.  I got this done in about two sittings (or hunchings). The edges of the panels took considerably longer.  I couldn’t really go at it with the metal scraper because it was too easy to dig into and gouge the door.  I finally found a use for all those chemical strippers on this part of the door, and they worked pretty well at getting a bulk of the paint off.  I still can’t stand the smell and it is much messier compared to the heat gun, but seems to be quicker and less damaging to the door.  After getting most of the paint off with the chemical strippers, I went over it scraping with a small screw driver the spots of paint that were still left, and using the Dremmel in some places.

Since there was no stain I was trying to preserve (the door had been painted bare without any protective varnish), and this project had taken up plenty of time already, rather than scrub it with lacquer thinner I used the belt and hand sanders to get any of the paint off the flat portions of the door.  When it was done and bare, the door was a thing of beauty.

The portion of the door that faced in the living room was lacquered rather than painted, but the shallac had started to really darken with age and to bubble up and “allegator”.  I started out evening and smoothing the shallac out with steel wool dipped in laquer thinner.  The trick here is to not over work the it until the lacquer thinner starts to dry and clump.  However, you don’t want your steel wool to be too wet, otherwise it just spreads into a gooey mess everywhere.  You also need to rinse the steel wool off frequently as it gets gummed up pretty quick.

The shallac wasn’t really thinning evenly, and I ended up with lighter spots in places where I scrubbed more.  I decided just to quickly strip off a majority of it by running over the flat’s with the heat gun and scraper.  I then used the steel wool and lacquer thinner on  the ridges to even the ripples out there, and scrubbed down the rest of the door.

Finally the door was clean and ready to be stained.  We stained the door with the gel stain, the clean unpainted side didn’t take the stain well and it had to be applied twice.  We let each side dry for a day before doing the other and applying the polyurethane.

To strip the hardware I dumped it all in a bucket filled with laquer and shallac thinner.  After it all sat for awhile I attacked it with my steel wool and steel wool bristle brush.  4 hours later I ended up with this:

As you can see, the brass hardware had become spotted with age, and I didn’t really want the hardware to look bright and brassy.  I liked the look of the older hardware around the house – covered with patina and blackened with age.  To do this I bought one of those antique patina kits from Menard’s in “copper”.  Thor complained about why was I spending 10 dollars to buy a kit to make something look old.  Sometimes the man doesn’t understand.

After scrubbing down the hardware with the steel wool one more time, I simply followed the directions, first spray painting the hardware and screw heads (yes I even did the screws) copper, and then applying the black patina.  I applied the patina in layers and dabbing it as it dried with the paper towel to avoid any streaks from the brush.  I tried to apply it in such a way that it would look more “natural” with the higher points being brighter and cleaner, and the corners being darker and since they would see less wear over time.

After that re-attaching the hardware and putting up the door was easy.  We have our privacy again, and another part of the house is done that I can take pride in.