oh yes, that old chestnut

I've made - a bit amateurishly - the first of the five internal doors. As this one is the door to the boiler room, I wanted it thick, and it is, two layers of chestnut.

The door frame still needs filler round the outside, and then finally it will be possible to paint the wall and take the sticky-tape off. I still find it odd that the menuisier will supply and install the door frames, but doesn't regard making the door frames fit properly into the openings as part of his job.



I was pleased to find a builders' merchant in Aurillac with a load of planked chestnut, varying widths but all 2.1m long and 20mm thick, which is a good size for a door. The rebate in the door frame as installed a long time ago is 40mm, so two thicknesses fit it nicely. The wood has polished up well, just using a sander on the sawn surface (OK, I used a plane on the worst bits), and it's treated with linseed oil, so it's both shiny and it smells good too. The sawmill's original saw-marks show up better in this flash photograph than they do in ordinary light, and what look like gaps at the top and bottom of one plank are actually where there is a little bit of much darker sapwood and bark (so, just not a photogenic door then). The planks all had a degree of warping in all three directions, so getting flat surfaces was a bit of a chore. I hope they won't warp too much more.

There isn't a door handle (and maybe one day there will be), but that's largely because I've used the same style of latch as found in cottages in Kent:



You put your finger through the hole to lift the latch. I've seen them with a string from the latch, through the door to a bobbin on the outside (these have the finger-hole as well), presumably to help the old and arthritic (or perhaps just for children with short fingers?) My largest drill was 25mm (or an inch on the other side) and ideally the hole should be just a little more, maybe an inch and a quarter.

This is a rather clumsy version, and for the subsequent doors I'll hope to make slimmed-down versions. Most of the parts are oak, so they would be strong enough even if they were only half as thick. They are made from offcuts from planks I have salvaged from the old barn floor, which is why they show the much darker colour at the two outside edges.

I didn't spend much time with the sander and plane on the inside surface - this is the boiler room, after all. In the picture the construction method shows. It's a bit like those old church doors, full of nails (in this case posidrive screws), with the two layers of wood at right-angles to each other. I will try to be a bit more sophisticated with the subsequent doors. This one is very heavy, but that is just what was wanted, as the boiler is noisy. The door has cut down the sound from it very satisfactorily. It's now possible to sleep through the boiler start-up first thing in the morning. Before putting the door in, it was better than an alarm clock (as you couldn't turn it off).