The fatal door

I’ve moved onto doors now. I must, surely, be getting close to the end. Surely this painting must stop... soon? I’ve used half a 10 litre tin on the walls, and 5 litres of white to cover the ceiling.

And still I’m not done. However I can see the light at the end of the rainbow.

But, bar the fireplace, the only other remnant to complete are the doors. And once I’d talked myself down from the ledge, I went through the slow and painful process of taking all the door furniture off the, err, door. It’s funny, but most builders paint the door still with the catches, handles, everything, still on, and then just slop a bit of paint around. The result is a muddy mess.

So with nerves of steel and an iron will, I’ve been attacking what, according to the heritage officer, are very heavily protected specially significant doors onto the old tap room of the original pub.

Oh no they are not. The giveaway is the Bunnings logo stamped into some of the metal work, and all the old screw holes that show where the old hinges (used to) go. What a nonsense. Right now they can take their open door policy and throw it right out the window.

Clearly the doors were salvaged when this place was turned into a pizza restaurant in the 1980s, and roughly put into place: very roughly in some cases; the door jams were fixed using a nail gun! Then a load of old door catches were screwed on; they are however unusual ones, and are generally all of a similar type. Turning the handle lifts the door catch up! And the catch itself has a very fancy cast brass insert into a mild steel frame. Not that that has stopped generations of painters from painting over all the brass and hiding the small stamped nameplate.

However, slowly but carefully, I’ve been able to scrape the paint off the brass, and polish it up. I’m at a loss as to how to get the mouse teeth marks out of the door though.