You can imagine my surprise when I was told we needed to find nine-foot pocket doors. Sure, I had grown up with pocket doors in our Seattle house, but they were only six feet tall!
The arched opening in the photo below was a non-historic change to the interior, meaning it was not a part of the original 1890 floor plan and design. At one time, the Glenn House pocket doors separated the front parlor from the dining room and stood nine feet, six inches tall. During our restoration of the original floor plan, we held out hope that the pocket doors were walled up inside. Sadly, they were not. It was time to begin the search for pocket doors.
Parlor and dining room, March 2017
I spent months calling every architectural salvage store I knew to find doors tall enough for the house. Hours searching online and sending emails usually turned up with, “I’m sorry, we do not have any doors that size right now” or “We have some eight foot doors, but none as tall as nine feet.” The clock was ticking to find these doors.
One day, I decided to search Instagram and came across 7th Street Salvage, an architectural antique store in Macon, Georgia. I contacted them right away and received an email back saying they had some pocket doors that were nine feet tall. They were currently in the process of renovating the store to open in April but invited us to come down and look. The following weekend, my mom and I drove down to Macon. We fell in love with the seven-panel pocket doors and even purchased some interior four-panel doors that we needed for bedrooms and closets.
Restoration of the pocket doors began yesterday. We discovered that they have a solid heart pine center and a heart pine veneer. Notches from the original rollers are still visible and ghost lines of the original hardware have given us some clues into its style. This week, we are focusing on sanding and repairing the bottom rail, which suffered extensive water damage and rot. Although we do not know the history behind these doors, we plan to give them a beautiful new life in the Glenn House.
More progress to come! Have a happy weekend.
Fabulous find! The doors are spectacular.
A. Dawson
I’m impressed. Score another one for Persistence and Patience. And the wood beneath is beautiful.
We had planned to paint them white due to the damage on the bottom rail, but once we saw the wood grain we are now planning to stain them! Excited to begin work repairing them.
We were so excited to find them! Need a little TLC, but they will be beautiful when finished.