Antique French Door Repair

Old houses are like belligerent tango teachers. They must be decoded, and given deference. You either memorize their quirky ways of moving or risk receiving a slapped hand, a banged toe, or breaking something. When your house guests come over you are compelled to teach them the dance steps too, as soon as they step inside ("this is weird. Yeah, you gotta lift and pull. Yep. Lift and pull! Now step to the side - quick!").

Old houses are like the oil painting that you inherited from great grandma, leaned against the wall for 12 years that you don't want the kids to kick over: it's not a design choice that you support or really believe in. It ought to be returned to its former glory, but you can't justify that. You can't really chuck it. It's known to be valuable. It leans where it leans. The family moves around it with low-grade tenderness, and it thanks them by haunting their lives with low-grade precariousness. The fact is -- it ought to stay where it is, but it's set up to become an expensive mistake. Thus I conclude Gabe's philosophy corner. These antique french doors (from one of Hopewell Borough's oldest homes)

came to me twisted and bowed,

in a door jamb with a center sag,

over a floor with a center trough.

Did I mention that old houses are like sculpture? I should've.

These doors weighed as much as Rodin sculptures. Both doors dragged and got hung-up on the bare floor, and yet the owners needed these doors to go sailing over a 5/8" pile floor rug. These doors needed a pick-me-up. The owners rightly suggested that I add a third set of hinges. Did I say that old houses are like opening up someone else's scrapbook? I should've. Somewhere in the mists of time, some ancient carpenter had installed one of the doors 3/4" too high, then compensated for it by adding a footer block to the bottom of the door.

Why in the world would they have done that? I don't know. It's not my scrapbook. But the misalignment meant that the doorknob's spring latch and strike plate couldn't mate, so the door couldn't stay closed:

It also meant that the "muntins" (wooden grid pattern in the window) were visibly misaligned.

Like... what? Yeah, so I removed that weird footer.

Additionally, the doors were "hinge bound" (the carpenter name for springy doors that won't close, but instead spring back at you). Every time someone attempted to shut them, the doors acted as massive crowbars: levering the hinge plates out of the jamb. Many of the screws had been levered back and forth so many times in the jamb that they were just swimming in space, like my 2nd grader trying to walk in my work boots. They'd just tumble right out and roll across the living room! So I had to get my custom shimming on; each mortise treated differently to compensate for the twist and bow of the doors, and the variable depth of each hinge mortise (the little cavity that the hinge plate nests in):

In aesthetically sensitive spots I used mahogany shims (see center mortise) to match the door jamb:

One door was splitting apart, requiring wooden reinforcement, glue, and 24 hr clamping. (BEFORE)

(AFTER)

Like a Rubix Cube, each correction of a problem (for example, properly shimming one of the 6 hinges), changed the shape and behavior of the other variables. This meant that I had to uninstall and reinstall the doors a half dozen times, transporting them outside for surgery, then back inside to see how my latest modification affected the total picture.

I cut off the bottoms of both doors at the correct taper, referencing the floor contour, and the neighboring door. Special attention was given to chopping through the steel floor strike bolt:

I then relocated the hinge mortise locations on the door edge 3/4" upward:

and added new hinge mortises to the center of each door and door jamb

One door didn't want to shut because it was bowed into the shape of the letter C. It was like Christina Aguilera when her "body's saying let's go, but her heart is saying no," -- the bottom part of the door shut fine, but the top wasn't into it. "Hinge bind" (where the door jumps back at you when you try to shut it) isn't only caused by hinge problems, but sometimes in-part by the door itself. It's like a cowboy shoving you backward at a bar and yelling "come'ere!" Shoving you backward again and yelling: "Come'ere!"

It was incongruent and sort of drunk. So I shaved that proud moment down to be in-plane with the rest of the door face, and it shut fine. Although I just described something that's very very boring as interestingly as I could, this "BEFORE" video I'm about to show you is truly the most boring :36 second video I've ever seen, and I'm posting it now, not because I hate you, but because when I watched it I was just wowed. Like how in the world did I ever think it was okay to take :36 to show the most boring subject matter ever!?! It's seriously so bad it's good.) ("BEFORE" VIDEO:)

See what I mean? (AFTER:)

Hinge bind fixed! But now the top of one of the doors had a big old slanted gap at the top... So I created a custom tapered cap for the door to wear, for 3 reasons: 1) gave the door enough height to properly hit the door jamb’s stop-moulding; 2) visually - made the gap at the top of the door uniform; 3) like a sturdy piece of tape, it helped to hold the top of the splitting door together.

Lastly, the hardware used for the floor strike was sitting at a toe-injuring 1/16” proud, meaning it could cut people’s toes, so I chiseled-out the floor strike mortise until it sat perfectly flush:

Project completed: Door spring latch & strike plate now align Window muntins now align Doors swing freely without striking the floor or rug. Doors bottom gap is even Doors top gap is even Lower floor strike bolt chopped and still reaches floor strike Upper floor strike bolt still reaches the upper jamb strike Hinge binding on both doors solved with custom shims (at door edges & jambs). Center hinges added to both doors Smooth as a Rodin sculpture! It's not "The Kiss", but check out nicely these doors are smooching now!!!