Cold Spaghetti

Hooray! I’m such a big boy to help out!

— We don’t need to punch holes in the walls… we can do this without major disturbance to the drywall.
— We’re pretty certain we can use the existing hardware, a substantial savings of money (around $400) and work (fitting it would be difficult… modern hardware hangs lower.)
— With Randy’s suggestion, we found a good stripper. The bummer is, we’ll have to spend about $300.

Yes, $300 for a stripper.

The method: first the hardware, then the door. It was difficult and very messy. They weren’t made to be taken out (a lot of being *just* an inch short of making it easy) and we experienced a decent amount of plaster rain and dust. We also discovered that one door has some mold. We’re pretty sure we know what it’s from: when the bank foreclosed, they stripped the house of everything of value that they could get (hardware, fixtures, cabinets), sprayed everything in the dirty beige oil paint you see everywhere, shut off the a/c, and shut the doors. Without the a/c to pull the humidity from the air (let’s be straight: our house is never below 80 degrees… the a/c only takes the humidity out of the air) and wet paint still on the doors that were pushed back into the walls… some mold grew.

Another interesting tidbit: one of the trim strips we removed had some writing on the back: “Pes Lamb Tongue Sldg 56 X 91 #279

Here you can see the track, which is screwed into a beam. The door hangs from rollers (four rollers on each end of the door) inside of the track. In this picture, one side of the track is gone and you can clearly see the second.

Paul manuvers the 9-foot, solid wood door into the study. My job here was spotting (watch out for the trim!) and placement of floor protection. See the rollers on the top of the door?

Better view of the track and procedure. 

The track. 100 years of dust and debris. The track is *quite* heavy… solid steel (?) is a guess.

No more doors! You can actually feel the hot air coming through the holes where the pocket doors sit. So far, Will has had only limited curiousity about the gaps in the wall. We’ll take a trip to the hardware store tonight and get a little something to cover the holes to “Will height” and prevent any unnecessary exploration.

Warning: Will is getting to the age of potty training. This blog will therefore have periodic posts of the more off-color variety reflecting this life stage. Those unaccustomed to the reality of child-rearing should take caution.

So I’ve mentioned that Will has begun to tell us when he has made a poopie. (Also referred to as “poo-poo” which is the term used by our Salvadorean nanny, Margarita.) We’ve also noticed the timing of his bowel movements are starting to follow patterns: one of which occurs right around shower time… often *during* shower time. (It’s not nearly as traumatic as it sounds. And yes, we scour afterwards.)

Tonight, as Paul prepared Will for a shower (as we have no tub, the routine is that I get in the shower, Paul brings Will to me, I wash Will and give him to back Paul, who dresses him) Paul noticed that Will was showing signs of trying to have a bowel movement, and told him so. Paul got very excited, brought Will into the bathroom, and put him on the toilet. (I’m beside them in the shower.) Will was definitely trying to do something, but it was clear he really didn’t know what to do. We encouraged him (“Poo-poo, Will, you can do it!”) cheered him on (“Push it out! Push it out! Way out!”) and generally tried to make him feel at home there on the throne. He had a good time, swung his legs, talked animatedly to us, blew kisses, and chorused back “poo poo! poo poo!” many times. But alas, nothing more happened. After a few minutes, we decided it was enough for a first time experiment. Into the shower he went.

Where he promptly pooped.

Two months until comps… the perfect time for starting a major project: repairing the pocket doors! Our house has the somewhat rare and valuable addition of pocket doors on both sides leading from the front room. They don’t quite work anymore (this place is a hundred years old after all) and we decided tonight that it was time to think about investigating. (To our credit, we needed to deal with this before doing any kind of painting or wall repairs in the front rooms so it really was something we needed to start.)

Paul pulled down the wood covering the overhead hardware, which allowed him to pull out one door. You can see in the picture above how huge the door is — we’ve got 12 foot ceilings, and the doors are appropriately sized! Underneath the paint, we saw that there was *beautiful* stained solid wood — from the look and what we know of the history, we think it’s cypress. Peeking into the wall confirmed some suspicions on how to proceed. We will need to punch holes in the walls, remove trim to take the frames out, replace (or at least really, really clean) the hardware, have the doors dipped to remove the paint (or do it ourselves if possible?), and then put it all back together. Then once all THAT is done, we can get back to the regular stuff like painting the walls. I’m attaching some pictures of the detail.

Looking up at the wood under the trim: notice the beautiful wood color and stain.