Exhibit 11: doors & hardware

WHO PAINTS OVER THESE?

For every house built in the 20s that I visited, some lazy landlord just painted over these treasures and ruined their doors.

The entire house was painted like $h!t and if I was refinishing the doors, I wasn’t going to let this quality hardware go by the wayside.

I had all the doors sanded and extraneous door handle positions patched.

Cleaning the brass hardware was pretty straightforward. With some baking soda, a crappy pot and boiling water, a lot of the paint peeled off. I definitely had to go in there with my box cutter and remove more… and there was a lot of elbow grease put into using a coarse sponge pad to remove the rest.

Some of the mortise locks were sealed shut with paint or Bondo, so I bought replicas from The House of Antique Hardware. I love this place. Wes Theis, who installed my bifold doors, also did the locks.

After about two months of living with no door handles, I finally polished the brass handles, rosettes and key hole covers.