Hidden treasures we have found during demolition #3

This is a post I looked forward to making. A new treasure we have found during demolition, the best one so far!

The first glimpses

When I first saw pictures of the dining room and living room there were no pictures of this specific part.

But before we went to the viewing we visited the house. We looked though the kitchen window I already noticed the doorframe and wall between the dining room and living room looked a bit weird.

You can see it on this picture we took during a second visit.

The frame itself looked okay, but the wall seemed very wide and the carpentry job also looked a bit off. I wondered whether it would be possible if the could be a sliding door enclosed in the wall.

During the viewing of the house we found out we were right. A small section of the side was removed to show there was a door inside the wall.

Problem was: nobody knew how the door looked or how big it was. The small gap only showed a small part of a cream colored door on the side…not much to go on.

Maddening

I must admit I couldn’t let it go.

An en suite door (as this type of door is called) usually consists of two doors; one sliding from the left and one from the right. But if this is an en suite door, where is the second one?!

Every day I thought about this door. Every. Day.

And I couldn’t do anything with it. The times we were allowed inside the house we couldn’t touch anything because it wasn’t formally ours yet.

But every time I would check the size of the wall the door was behind and measuring the opening in the doorframe.

My thoughts on the door(s):

• Could it be possible it was one big door instead of two smaller ones? Is this even a thing?
• Maybe they slid two doors to one side?
• What can we do if there is only one small door that doesn’t fit the frame?

I just couldn’t figure out if there was enough room inside the wall to house a big door or two smaller ones.

And this was just thinking about the existence of en suite doors.

That is excluding all the dreaming I did on the door itself. Since some doors in the house are replaced with newer ones I could’nt tell if this was the original.

And since we are not completely sure on the age of the house I had no clue on style either.

Would it be a boring and plain wooden door? Or would it be a marvelous style icon?

The big reveal

On the day we got the keys to Maartje we planned a structured demolition, but of course I immediately wanted to see what was inside the wall.

We waisted no time:

It is one huge en suite door!

(Keep reading for better pictures.)

Details of the en suite door

The door is large enough to fit the frame and is in okay shape.

Some minor issues are the two busted pieces of glass and the dozens of holes. The holes are a result of the wooden supports that held the wall. Some overly enthusiastic carpenter just put the nails right into the door…

But other than that it’s mainly just the paint that needs an update. The sliding mechanism has to be restored as well, because this is all gone.

But what a great find!!! I’m super happy with it.

Here are some better pictures:

Next step

Now it’s just a matter of keeping it safe until we get around to restoring it. The glass and lead structure is very fragile because it seems a bit wavy when moved.

We parked the door in the office for now.

Then we have to figure out how we can restore this, maybe fix the glass first?

Any tips or suggestions would be helpful, so if you have a similar experience please share your thoughts in the comment section.