My House it has no 90 degree corners

90 degree corners have not my house

If my house had 90 degree corners

It would not be my house.

When I was house shopping I knew what I wanted.  I wanted a house with character.  I wanted gorgeous molding, built-ins, original hardwood floors, quaint rooms with sloping ceilings and side attics.  I got all that, plus a traditional old gas lamp on the walkway and so much more.  A stair case so narrow and steep we had to tear my double bed sized box spring apart and rebuild it in the room to get it up the stairs and a dining room floor that looks like its been through a war zone with hundreds of holes after being covered over in three separate layers that were nailed and stapled down for the past four or more decades.   But its most recently significant charm, is with all the lovely so-called classic lines comes the classic . . .   no longer holding their line, lines.

My humble abode is a lovely 1922 one and a half story bungalow.  Anyone of you who has ever lived in a house that has hit or is nearing the century mark, you know the extra challenges that brings.  All building settle over time.  And my home sweet home has been settling itself for 90 years.

Her floors slope, the new windows, level with the ground, are not framed parallel to the crown molding, the door to the shoe closet sticks and needs to be filed down . . .   again. . .    and furniture needs to be shimmed in order to keep from wobbling.  But all this has been part of her charm, fixed in a blink of an eye or ignored having no major consequence . . .  until I needed to put doors up.

I remember my brother rebuilding the closet in the spare room downstairs for me before I took in my first tenant down there about a year ago.  He ripped the frame out, added 6 inches and reframed the closet doors.  The closet in is original size was not deep enough to fit a clothing hanger.   I recall his frustration at nothing being square, how nothing lined up.  I do not think I truly appreciated it, however.  Until those closet doors broke on this same closet and needed replacing.

This should be easy!  no problem.  Like an idiot I had visions of waltzing into my local big box hardware store and walking out with affordable stock doors that would not only fit, but would be easily installed same day.    What made this journey even more hysterical is I decided this was a good time to go shopping for the door I wanted to put in at the top of the basement stairs.  HA!

I went in armed with my measurements (not mine, the doors’) and my ever capable and way too good to me father.  His trunk is bigger than mine (his car’s).  Quickly I came to realize that they only stocked 80″ doors.  Closet or otherwise.  There were not stock sizes in 1922.  But this was okay for the closet doors.  The flush bi-folds we were able to cut down to size, put the knobs wherever we wanted.  They did not give us grief until putting them up in the track.  The two doors would not meet up at the top, or where they closed . . .   one door refused to close.  It took  us two days to do this simple project. Taking the door off, adjusting, putting them back up, and repeating for hours on end.  And we were forced to deal with idiocy not of my crooked house’s making.  Two doors, same company, same exact style, with unmatching hardware, and not even the right hardware.

But the true major project still lies ahead.  Looming. Scary.  The door to the basement.  If we were to put in a stock prehung door, we would have to cut the thing down to size, and wind up with a door handle at our knees.  But the width of the jam would be way off and would look really stupid.  Like the door handle at knee level wouldn’t look stupid enough.  Jams back then, as mine are, were  51/4″ vs the 41/2″ they are now.  Too bad since a prehung door can cost as little as $40 on sale.  With door knobs and trim, this would fit nicely into my broke-ass budget.

We could have the prehung door custom ordered to fit the hole.  A great option . . .   if you have $200 available, and more after doorknob and trim.  $200 hundred dollars?  to make the same thing that costs forty, WITH LESS WOOD?   And with one more drawback that either prehung option presents.  These framed portals come with standard 90 degree corners.  To fit in nice square places.  I do not have a nice square place . . .   Forcing a prehung door into too off of a space could fracture the joints, and may just be plain not doable.

So we are left with the old fashioned option number three.  Buy a door, build the frame to fit.  An in between cost of about $100.  But a hell of a lot more work than I really want to put in . . .  or rather want to ask help with.

Ah  . . .  the joys of old home ownership.  Stay tuned for the future drama of project basement door!