5 Alexandra St Pocket Door – a snail without its shell

One of the things I love about our home is its flow and the ability to leave some doors open and create movement through rooms or close the doors and create quiet private spaces. I know open floor plan is all the rage but that has never been my thing – maybe it comes from having brothers growing up with a lot of noise and mess. In 5 Alexandra we have a living room and dining room separated by one large pocket door – not two that meet – just one large one. When we moved in this pocket door could not be pulled from the wall. With a crowbar I was able to pull a couple of feet of it out from the wall but that was it.

In came my handyman. We discovered that the pocket door 1) had the frame built around it and 2) had been purposefully sabotaged. I am not sure why but I suspect that either when carpet was put in the house or when the house started shifting and floors became less level, the family purposefully removed some screws from a clasp that held up the door from the top.

We pulled the pocket door out from the wall and check it out – like a snail without its shell. This beast is huge and heavy.

We also discovered two sort of hinges or clasps with patents on them held the door in place and the screws had been purposefully removed. Our handyman was incredible with getting them cleaned and fixed up, and we purchased a third hinge based on the patent information we found, just in case.

As this door is huge, our handyman also kindly created a sort of floor guide to prevent the door from swinging.

Sadly the stopper inside the wall could not be reused without taking the wall apart, so our beloved handyman (Tom) found another solution and saved it for us. Future museum piece?

We think, based on this pocket door and colours around the window and on hardware that this cream colour was used throughout the house decades ago and we plan to bring it back. Here is the door as viewed from the living room. The small black glass deco handle was added by my handyman to facilitate easier movement of the door.

And here is the door as viewed from the dining room – no paint applied – the original colours are there.

All totaled, I think Tom spent three days getting this bad boy back in business. Now I can work in the dining room and close the door and have some private space. And the pocket door is back to being in business after decades of being left inside the wall.