I think that in the 1950's they may have had a thing for doors... At one point, there was a door in our kitchen that led to the back door and basement stairs. I'm sure people at that point used the front door and wanted that back area hidden. Honestly, that area is really ugly (see the view). I really don't know how they could have made that work well. It's quite cramped now and we don't have a door to open and close. I even know of a couple houses on our street alone that have doors that separate the living room from the tiny hallway that leads to the bedrooms and bathrooms. My mom even thought it could be possible that there was once a pocket door between our living room and kitchen.
At some point, the once upon a time owners of my house took that door between the kitchen and back door/basement stairs are off and removed all the door hardware (hinges, strike plate) and just painted over everything. So, the door frame has been there without a door for a long time. There was absolutely nothing eye appealing about this.
I figured that since we were finishing the basement and there would be someone around doing drywall and taping/mudding that I could just made that door frame disappear and get in some normal there. I brought it up to the contractor, asking if I ripped it all out, if they could fix it up. He said it would be no problem and would actually give us a couple of extra inches. Nice.
It was pretty easy to pull it out and it took maybe 20 minutes with clean up. I simply scored the paint between the wall and the trip with a utility knife. With layers and layers of paints, I figured it was best to not rip off a ton of paint and make the walls worse than they already are. Then I just used a crow bar to pry up the trim from the inside of the door (instead of from by the wall) to prevent banging up the wall.
The trim was very easy to pop out. I did the same to the other side of the doorway, which was a little trickier because of the back door trim. They both "met" and this doorway's trim is under the back door's trim. Next, I used the crow bar to push out the door frame where it was nailed in. Because of changes in floor (our floor is on top of the original weird lumpy laminate flooring), it was a little tricky. While I hate our kitchen floor, it has to stay a little while longer.
Pulling the frame out took a little more muscle, but it was kind of fun. It definitely freed up a few inches. Best part of it is, no more 'ghost' hinges and strike plate spots. I *think* that they should be drywalling soon. I'm going to cross my fingers and knock on some wood though, everything is taking waaaay longer than it should.
A lot needs to happen in this tiny area before it can be considered done...
Luckily, most of it will be addressed shortly. As for the two types of trim, that's sort of my fault. But the paint on the faux wood trim is not my fault. I'm hoping next on our list after all this major stuff will be that kitchen floor. The plan right now is to do 18x18 Travertine like in that step down in front of the door. I'm looking forward to my demo to get all patched up now.
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