One Person's Trash...
While much of our focus in this first year is getting miscellaneous old stuff out of this house, today we made an exception and reversed the trend.
We picked up three doors from a building in our neighborhood that is being torn down. Unfortunately there wasn't as much to salvage as we had hoped, given the building's condition, but it was good to get a few doors that did match dimensions we needed. For now, we've stuck them in the basement, but later they'll be something to use upstairs where two doors are missing.
Things we learned in the process:
Bring the right tools. Definitely bring several screwdrivers (Phillips & standard), a pry-bar (or two!), a hammer, pliers, a razor (for scraping paint out of old screw tops) and a flashlight. We also wish we'd have brought a hacksaw or even our Sawzall.
Think before you get there about what you need. We measured the doorways in our house that were missing doors, including both the desired height and width as well as the height of the doorknob hardware.
Brush up on the proper technique for removing items. There is an art to removing old molding/trim or built-ins. Don't overlook details like hooks and drawer handles.
Also, think about what's important to you. Do doors have to be an exact match? How much wear and tear is acceptable? In our case, we didn't really consider that there were deadbolts on some of the doors we took until we were loading them into the car. Those will have to be cleaned up and some wood will have to be patched.
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Comments
Just an unrelated - or I guess related - thought. Have you ever heard of Freecycle.com? It is a website that breaks into local groups that is free and whose mission is to keep stuff out of landfills. - ie one mans trash is another mans treasure. I live in Texas, where historic furnishings and the like are not as abundant as in Chicago (my home town). While living in Chicago I dumpstered antiques on a regular basis - from turn of the century to 50's modern (tears are welling up from homesickness)! So someone in chicago might have some "old stuff" to get rid of while remodeling which may turn out to be a coveted light fixture you may need circa 1920! No one is allowed to charge for anything or is removed from the list. You may want to check it out or spread the word, as you have quite the online presence for junkers & preservationists like myself! It would be a win win situation for the hordes of people gutting (destroying) beautiful vintage houses - instead of having to pay to take it to the dump, somone can come pick it up!
Othewise your house is looking lovely and I am proud of you both! We are looking into purchasing a vintage bunglow in a low income historic neighborhood here in Austin. It is ALL bungalows and we just know it is going to go up in value, and we want to get in while we can afford it. Know of any national plans for rehabbing?
Thanks
dena
Posted by: dena | April 18, 2004 1:00 PM
In response to the last post, the URL is freecycle.org (not freecycle.com). I just went searching for it upon the last post's suggestion and noticed the mistake.
Thanks for the Freecycle idea! (And J and A, you guys are doing great - don't get discouraged!)
Posted by: Leah | April 19, 2004 10:09 AM