Completing work on the pocket door. With the parlor floor and wallpaper in place, I can now trim the pocket door. I started by finishing the threshold between the parlor and the kitchen. I used the same flooring as the parlor, figuring it would matter more to have a clean finish from the parlor leading to the door than it would from the kitchen which is a less formal room.
I cut a small tab of floor material to sit inside the pocket door wall. This will keep the lead edge of the pocket door elevated inside the pocket wall so it doesn’t get hung up on the flooring when closing.
I lined the top of the pocket door opening with 1/8″ x 1/16″ strip wood, checking all the while to make sure the pocket door remained functional. This trim was planned when I cut the initial opening and was calculated into that measurement. All the trim will be painted Vintage White to match the rest of the interior trims before I install it permanently.
Since the house itself isn’t square, there is a larger gap between the closed pocket door and the wall at the top than there is at the bottom.
I built a door frame to mask some of the gap and to finish off the lead edge of the pocket doorway.
It doesn’t fix the problem completely in the kitchen, but it at least looks more polished.
With the frame painted and installed, the gap is invisible in the parlor.
The painted trim around the door frame really completes the look of the pocket door. As you can see, the pocket wall is a little warped — just the nature of thin plywood — but it doesn’t really seem to show except in this head on shot. This will not be a vantage point once the kitchen ceiling board is installed, and it doesn’t interfere with the functionality of the pocket door.
Once the interior trims were in place, I could line the kitchen and parlor walls with trim. For the kitchen, I opted for plain bass wood since it matches the trim used on the kitchen windows.
I again used spackling to fill in the small gaps, shown here before filling.
For the parlor, I used fancier molding to coordinate with the interior trim of the front door. It’s not exactly the same as the front door trim, but it has similar detailing.
These small details always increase the realism by finishing off raw edges and giving a sense of completeness.
