Doors, Doors, and More Doors

For the past few days, we have been concentrating on painting the coat closet and starting the work on the jambs.  Once the nail holes are filled in and sanded, we have to sand the rest of the jambs to "rough them up" at bit so the paint adheres.  Rick is not a huge fan of painting, so doing nothing but paint is hard on him.  We usually get a good start, but interruptions and trips to the store always seem to get in the way.

The coat closet door's final coat dries as it rests in the
Florida Room which is now our painting space.

Today started with a final coat of paint on one side of the coat closet.  The work is slow because we are trying to let one side dry before we flip the door over (at least while working on the final coats) to finish the other side.  I am not terribly pleased with the results of the doors; I think there are still too many brush strokes visible and the paint is not smooth.  We are trying to use the old can of paint first, and while the paint is supposed to be self-leveling, this time around Rick said it is a little more "gummy."  I don't want to just throw the paint out since it cost us $60 a gallon, but, as I said, I am not happy with the results.  Maybe we can use this old can of paint for the first coat or the back (inside) closet doors and use the new gallon for the finish coats.  I want to try to roll the paint, but Rick will not hear of that.  He said that a roller leaves a pattern that he does not like, but is an overall pattern any worse than brush strokes? I wanted to try to at least roll on the first coat on the back of one door to see the result; he is still opposed to that idea.  This debate is not over.

Once he finished the final coat on one side of the door this morning, we took some time to go to Woodcrafters to pick up the vacuum system for his new Festool saw.  We also needed to get the other guide and some clamps to go with it.  We both are excited for him to get the saw because it will open many new opportunities for us in making Gladys the prettiest old lady on the block.

The original closet with both upper
and lower doors removed. 

One of the prime reasons for getting the saw is to make accurate cuts on the bedroom closet doors.  The doors are eight feet tall, and we need to trim them about three inches to fit in the current closet openings.  We debated a long time on what to do with these 1960s closets.  Originally, they had a lower closet for clothes and a separate storage closet above.  Some people suggested that we just remove the upper doors and drywall off the upper storage, but with no basement and only a one-car garage, losing that much storage was out of the question.  We really did not like the looks of the two level, old-fashioned slide-bys, so when the owner of a local millwork shop suggested we just go with two doors and open the whole closet up, that seemed our best bet.  We still will have access to all of the storage, and we will have clean (although tall) doors that match the decor of the rest of the house.  I am sad that we still have no choice but slide-bys, but one cannot change everything in these old houses.

Rick spent the rest of the day removing the doors and outer framing of the old closet doors in the guest bedroom.  Stephanie is coming for a visit in another three weeks, so we want to get the guest room finished before her visit.  She is a trooper and will put up with whatever construction is going on, but Rick is determined to get the guest room back into livable order before she arrives.

With the closet contents removed (and stored in the bathtub!), the
frame came out and and reconstruction began.

The doors were soon gone (the large ones in the garage to act possibly as work surfaces while the smaller ones to the garbage pile), and the framing presented only a little tug-of-war with Rick.  The tracks for both sets of doors also will be on the curb next week, as will the closet pole and the warped shelf from the original lower closet.  Once all of the debris was cleared, we started to reframe the opening.  We had to add filler strips down each side and across the top to match the plastered walls.

We wanted to reuse the original upper shelf and to keep the space the same in the guest room, so Rick added a reinforcing board under the front of the shelf.  Then he used pocket-screwed in braces to further support it.  We bought a metal brace that will support the shelf in the middle from the top; that brace will always be behind the overlapping doors no matter how they are open, so no one will ever see it.  The upper shelf is now much more secure than it originally was.  Gladys is an old lady, so she was really beginning to sag in places.  The restructured shelf is like getting the old girl a new girdle.  The label may not say Spanx, but Gladys' shelf is now much more firmly in place.

The upper shelf is now faced and secured, and
the upper frame awaits paint and the track to
hold the new doors. Tools and a ladder will
spend the night out of the way tucked back in the closet.

Tomorrow we will finish the framing at the sides and maybe even get around to putting on a first coat of fresh paint.  The doors still need to be cut, we need to add shelves to both ends of the lower closet, we need to figure out upper shelves in the rest of the closet, and add the tracks and the doors once the doors are painted.  This certainly will not be completed by tomorrow, but if we continue to work on it each day, we will make progress toward our goals.

I am a very organized person, and I love that we can finally take time to plan where to put everything that we have accumulated.  The more storage space we get, the easier it will be to keep track of where everything is.  Because of the humid climate down here where everything wants to rust, the guest room closet that is climate controlled really doubles as a tool/ paint/ utility closet.  We are working toward adding an internal structure that will suit our needs while still giving guests a small space to hang clothes and to store a suitcase.

Rick said he felt good about what he has accomplished today, and well he should.  He worked very hard and made great progress into making the closet a very functional space.  Gladys, I think, felt pretty good about it also.