Monday, January 14, 2008

Need a Door? Or 50?

Friday and Saturday Friends of Historic Preservation's salvage crew started working on the International Center building on the University of Iowa campus. The old portion of the building was constructed in 1935 as a dormitory for law students. There are over 50 old birch (we think) 5 horizontal panel doors complete with fully functional window transoms and hardware.



We have removed 20+ already in their jambs. The doors are a nominal 32 inches with some hallway doors (also with transoms) at 36 inches. With the transom they are 8 feet 4 inches tall.

Nearly all are right handed. The casing around them is mitered in the corners, with a biscuit hold thing miter together and three screws on each side of the joint (six per corner)



If you're building new (or remodeling) and want a great set of matching, never painted doors, let me know and I'll put you in touch with our salvage barn manager.

Of course the highlight of my day was crawling out a second floor window to a parapet to get a great shot of the Old Capitol Dome across the Iowa River:



What was even better was when I turned around and saw this:



Too big for a squirrel, wrong color for an opossum. Could a groundhog climb to third floor?

5 comments:

Jennifer said...

We got the Mahogany doors that we are using for our house from a similar situation! The University here decided to convert their faculty apartments into dorms, and so took out all of the orinal doors and such. Score for us!ff

Anonymous said...

Golden Gopher, maybe?

Hayden Fry?

Mike said...

Jennifer- That's what we are hoping for are people to get a matching load all at once. Door, transom, casing and hardware all matching.

Jimmy- Funny you should say that, someone in Cedar Rapids found the blog today by doing a google search on "Pepe Rojas Cardona" my post about him was in reply to you and also mentioned "Hayden Fry!"

Anonymous said...

That squirrel/gopher/groundhog is in a very compromising situation, literally. If you're looking for more home accessories for your projects -- area rugs specifically, check out http://www.rugsdoneright.com - they have a wonderful selection with affordable prices.

Anonymous said...

Are these doors still available?

If so, can you e-mail at

echriste@baldwin-telecom.net

Thanks