Doorway

Part of the Secret Room project of turning it into a bathroom required that a new doorway be cut in the wall to allow access to the room, so that the wall of the closet could be closed up and walled over (remember, we cut the closet wall out to originally discover the room, and we are expanding the size of our closet as part of the project as well).

This shows the wall, after most of the wallpaper has been taken down. All that remained on this wall was the seams, which had been superglued down at some point (grrr...). The closet door is in the foreground.

Starting to cut into the wall where the door will go. Imagine my joy when I pulled off the plaster on the inside of the wall, and found out that a doorway was already framed in- it had just been covered up by plaster! The doorframe which went into the spot originally was also in the secret room, so all I had to do was cut the plaster off of both sides, and then put the old door frame in space. Up in the attic is the 5 panel door that would have originally gone here as well.

I am happy that not only did the old framing save me the work of framing in a new spot, but it also means that by putting this door in, we are actually returning to another original construction design on the house :-). Every time I pull down a wall and find an abandoned framed in doorway underneath, I feel like I am 'getting to know' our house more. I can better invision what it looked like when it was built almost 100 years ago.... Plus, I'm thrilled that this secret room project is finally really taking shape!