Kitchen Swinging Door

Our kitchen has a swinging door between the kitchen and the soon to be laundry room.  This area was originally a butler's pantry but by the time we purchased the house it was just an empty room with a plastic laundry tub.

The plan is to stack our Bosch washer and dryer and then install cabinets, counter, and a deep stainless sink. Ideally, I would prefer not to stack them but this room is small and moving the plumbing will be difficult as the two furnaces are directly below.

The swinging door matches all the other doors in the house but has the big swinging door mechanism.  The door sits about two inches off the floor and has about 3/4 inch gap at the top.  We will lower the door so that there is a half inch gap at the top and bottom.

The current swinging mechanism is ugly.  It's huge, rusted, and missing the cover at the top.  I've been searching on eBay for over a year for different hinges and I finally found a pair.  At one point the seller and I thought they were lost in the mail.  The box was nearly destroyed when it finally arrived and it looked like the post office had to repair the bottom of the box.

I like the look of these hinges because they are similar to the other standard door hinges in the house.  I can honestly say that this is the first time I have seen hinges like this that have the look of a ball tipped hinge pin. These are also adjustable so you can adjust the tension on the internal spring.  I didn't measure the hinges but they are between 6 and 8 inches and are very heavy cast iron.  Some of the vintage hinges for swinging doors are made of pressed metal.

These hinges will need to be sandblasted and then painted satin black.  In the meantime, we will remove the door and start removing the many layers of oil based enamel paint.  The door will also need fixing where it was modified to accommodate the current swinging mechanism.  We should be able to glue in a block of wood and then use epoxy to fill in any little chips or divots.   Once the old paint is removed and the door is patched, I will paint the door white and the center panel in black chalk board paint.  We are big time list and note leaving people so this should come in handy.

But in the meantime....I am still removing paint from the living room wall.  Today I spent about three hours and I can say that I was only able to remove about 1 1/2 square foot of paint and drywall compound.  What a mess.  I just keep repeating to myself....it will look better....it will look better....it better.