Death of a Door Mouse

I don’t know why, but all the doors in the old part of the cottage have huge gaps under them. Not the usual crack that allows a bit of light under, but a huge whopping great big chunk that means mice escape under them when the cat goes chasing dinner.

Actually, I won’t lie to you. I do know why. Some of the doors aren’t original: the give away is in the hinges, where the doors were clearly on some other door, before this house had its disastrous 1993 ‘restoration’ which will take me ages to restore back to the original. I mean, look at the hinges, there are obvious gaps in the woodwork where the old hinge went, and now there is a new one at some other silly location.

And big chunky hinges they are too, still with a Bunnings price tag – all of $3.95 in 1993.

However, I don’t like the gaps. The draft roars through. So I came up with a cunning plan. Plane the bottom of the door flat & level. A chunk of wood under the door. Screw it on, Plane it level with the door. Fill around the gaps, paint, and there you go.

All was fine, until, as I was about to put the door in place, I dropped it on the floor, leaving a nasty dent in the dining room floor (on the only pristine plank in there, damit!) and smashing the bottom.

I then wasted a day putting the door back together.

I did attempt to get some brasso to polish up the original door furniture, but after a lot of effort scraping the paint off, it was in a pretty bad condition. 

However, I then realised I’d been left a ‘box of bits’ in the loft by the original house restorers. And there, low and behold, where some more key hole surrounds and the like: all the door furniture in the house isn’t original, as I’d though. It was instead purchased mail order from Legge in the UK 20 years ago. 

They’d ordered some spares, and it was the work of a moment to pop them on my newly painted door.