Having knocked a hole in the wall to create a new kitchen door, and lining it as described here, I have finally finished all the trim. It seemed convenient to use a frieze to cover up the hole where the lintel was put in, but a full entablature would be too elaborate for a kitchen. I also couldn’t use deep architrave because it would clash with the radiator valve. I therefore decided to go with a a slimline arts-and-crafts style trim.
The wall between the two doors I covered with MDF since I didn’t want the bother of buying a whole sheet of plasterboard for such a little area. I wired up the light switch to the existing patress in (what used to be) the corridor, and the old coridoor lamp is now the pantry lamp. The plinth blocks are plain rectangular and made from scraps of MDF windowsill board I got free from Wilson’s Timber. The two doors are so close together that I figured it would be OK to have the frieze extend right over both of them. I also made door stops from 12mm MDF, with a simple profile routed along the edge.
I’m particularly pleased with the pantry door because I found it in a skip round the corner! It looked like a 1970s door but I could tell by looking at the ends that it was morticed and tenoned, so I had a suspicion that it was a much older door with some ‘fashionable’ hardboard nailed to it. Sure enough there was a beautiful Vicorian door underneath, still with its original brown paint job and near enough the right size for the pantry door frame. I stripped it back with a hot air gun, hoping to stain it like my new pine doors, but this turned out not to be possible. It had been primed with some kind of liquid putty that was impossible to clean off, and the door had been trimmed right up to the joints, one of which was also slightly rotten. It was in too poor a shape to leave stripped. I therefore strengthened the joints by glueing dowels through the tenons, and also glued and dowelled some strips of wood on each end to lengthen the door to fit my frame, before filling and painting it. It’s only a 1 1/4 inch door so I didn’t fancy morticing a latch into it, so I fitted a chromed rimlock that I’d bought on eBay for £6 a while ago. I also bought chromed fire door hinges from Screwfix. I think it looks very attractive and worthy of a Victorian kitchen, despite the doors being different colours! Eventually I will finish the floor tiling, skirting, back door, and think about improving the kitchen fittings.
The opposite side of the kitchen door uses the same deep architrave that I used elsewhere downstairs, made from two layers of 4mm MDF and some dado rail. Pro tip: if you have a gap between the architrave and the door lining you can disguise it by gluing some thin dowel into it. My gap wasn’t even consistent in thickness, but once painted it all looks like one solid piece of Victorian architrave.
This example is kind of excusable since it was part of a quirky shop fitting in York, rather than a permanent house fixture. So it’s just a warning: If you’re going to use plinth blocks make sure they are wider than the architrave and are sanded good and smooth. Otherwise you get this, i.e. badly painted firewood.
OK I’ll let you in on a secret: Torus is dull as skirting, ugly as architrave, but a total eyesore as dado rail. This example is outside the mens toilet at Preston station. Talk about making a depressing location even worse. It doesn’t even match the dado rail around the rest of the corridor, which is Ogee. Could they really not be arsed to go and buy an extra bit of Ogee? And where the hell is the architrave on the left side of the door?? I should have paid more attention but I was self-conscious about taking photos right outside the gents… ahem.
I removing all the existing skirting and architrave (except around the front door which was in tolerable condition). Trivia: underneath I found some numbers inked on the door frame -I think it may be the date, as the house was built in 1879. I kept the only piece of original skirting, which I will use to fix a missing section of stair stringer later.
Having cut a dirty great hole in the wall between the back room and kitchen, it needed to be lined. Off-the-peg door linings appear to be designed only for thin stud walls, and in any case I already had a door in mind which is not a standard size. I therefore had to make my own lining. By a lucky coincidence the total thickness of the wall including plasterboard is 200mm, and I know I can buy 195mm pine boards as standard from Jewsons (£5.17 per metre). I was even able to find a length that was completely knot free! OK, this means the lining won’t be exactly flush with the plaster but I can hide the gap with architrave. I already have plenty of experience in this area from the wild and wonderful door-meets-wall variations elsewhere in the house, of which more in a later post.
The pine boards are only 22mm thick (they’re advertised as 25 x 200mm). Even though off-the-peg door lining seem to be about the same thickness, I think this is too thin to hang a heavy door off (the original linings in my house are at least 1 inch thick). The next size of timber up is 32mm which was too thick for me as it would have narrowered the door aperture too much, so I considered glueing an extra layer of plywood onto the 22mm jamb to increase the thickness. However, before I got this far I saw this image 
Next I added the header. I cut rebates in each end so it sits down on the jambs and will prevent them from cupping or trying to pull away from the wall. I nailed the header down onto the jambs and also drove some wedges in against the lintel for added rigidity against years of door banging. I then emptied an entire can of 
The layout of this house is exemplary of Victorian design. There are two reception rooms, and the kitchen is accessed down a passageway. We don’t want servants forever traipsing coal dust and offal through the good rooms, after all. How times have changed. I mostly live in the front room, which means the back reception room gets very little use while the passageway is basically a pointless bypass. An obvious modification is therefore to put a door between the back room and the kitchen and to turn the passageway into a big useful cupboard. I know at least two nextdoor houses that have done this already.
The bricks were covered in browning plaster (I guess somebody had initially intended to plaster onto the brick, but later decided to use plasterboard?) so I chipped it off and eventually found the edge of the first brick. I then drilled lots of little holes around its mortar joints. I could then drive a chisel into the joints to break it up quite easily, especially as it is old and sloppily laid lime mortar. A good whack with a hammer and the first brick was free. I continued with this until I had cleared about a meter of one course. I didn’t completely remove the central brick as the yawning gap gave me the willies, although I don’t really think there was any danger of other bricks falling down.
