It's a bedroom? It'll need a door!

Everyone talks about demo. I'm not really sure why. People - I'll speak (or write, in this case) in generalizations - talk about how they love ripping some stuff out and crashing into other stuff with sledge hammers.

It's not that it's not fun for the first few hits. In fact, I, too, think of it as a bit of free therapy for a little while. But when you're precision-demoing a wall, for example, it's not just wailing on it with a sledge hammer and a crow bar and hoping for the best. You need a little finesse.

If you've been hanging out here for a while, you know that I have a bit of a fixation on doors. I think that's because I've had a bit of a time finding the perfect ones for Isthmus House along with the right hinges, hardware, etc. I'm fine with that though - leave your nice, original hardware where it is people! I'll take mine from the houses that actually can't be saved (few and far between) or get it made.

There's one door I needed that didn't already exist. The door to the sewing room from the hallway! To be clear, I actually needed to start with a doorway. I didn't have one of those either - and I'm not one of those people who thinks that a room with a window and a closet constitutes a bedroom if you can't get to it without going through another bedroom.

With electrical in the way and not being positive it wasn't a load-bearing wall, however, some pros were going to be necessary.

First up was moving an outlet so that it wouldn't fall precisely where I needed the door to go. I have a great electrician - who happened to have a scheduling mix up the morning I needed them there. We got it worked out but the uh-that-might-take-a-while made me a little nervous on arrival since there was no additionally budgeted time post-mix-up.

 Fortunately, we were able to thread the wires up and over a beam so that they didn't have to go up to the attic to thread back down and through the walls. I guess it's helpful having a 6' 4" apprentice (so nicknamed Shorty by one carpenter)...

 

Once the electrical was moved, I could get to work on making a hole in the wall. The goal was to try to save the old light switch in the top photo above. Even though it wasn't original, I still thought it was kind of cool.

Now that I knew where my electrical was, that I had dead knob and tube wiring in the walls, and the parts of the wall I wanted to save, a stealth approach was needed to create a doorway without losing a wall's worth of plaster and lath.

The cliff notes version of plaster and lath walls are that plaster (often combined with horsehair for strength) is applied wet in coats to individually nailed on pieces of lath (the wood slats in the picture above) to cover a wall. When it's still wet, the plaster squishes into the seams between the slats and dries into "keys" latched into the wall.

If you're careful when you pull it off the wall, you can sometimes take it off in some giant chunks.

 Again, protective clothing, glasses and gloves are a good choice since this is essentially rock that's coming off your walls. Another helpful hint - don't fill a kitchen trash bag when you take down plaster. Since you're toting rocks, you'll want to use a construction trash bag and only fill it partway before filling the rest with lighter materials.

For me, it was worth it to use a hand saw, pry bar and hammer and manually take down the plaster. It's a little cleaner than using a reciprocating saw (aka Sawzall) if considerably more time consuming.

 

 

Next up, getting a doorway and - dare I say it? - even a door!

 

 

 For prep work, it wasn't bad at all and it saved me plenty of money for not paying someone to rip holes in my wall before putting in the door. After all, why should someone else get to have all the fun?