Beyond the depth, we've been able to open various doors and the transom at different times of the year and day to allow greater cross ventilation through the house as well as light into the front room and hallway.

And best of all, Lulu and Mel can sit up there to people/animal watch. It's like their very own TV.

Though it's been great, we've had an issue with keeping the French doors open. This little issue exists because I never installed any door stops to protect the wall, so we've had a few instances of the door being opened too wide and the knob hitting the wainscoting. The other minor nuisance is that the left door likes to stay open, but the right door likes to shut. This is most likely due to the area being slightly out of level, but it's an annoying trait when we want the French doors to remain open to promote the cross ventilation I mentioned.

This became a more significant issue that requires a more urgent resolution once we agreed to participate in the Holiday Designer Tour of Homes. Since the guests on the home tour will be entering through the front door, the last thing we want is for some amount of damage to come to the vestibule or French doors because of our own negligence. To remedy this situation we knew we had to act.

I began researching, and quickly decided on a magnetic door stop. This solution would protect the door and wall from colliding, and it would also act as a catch for the doors, holding them in place until we want to close them. In this case, magnets are a simple, yet miracle solution.

When doing my research I found a great option that would work for our needs. It was carried by Renovators Supply and was offered in an array of available finishes. This seemed to be the only style i could find that both concealed all screws once it was installed and was also available in a black finish. I placed the order for two door stops, and they arrived this week.

After a bit of debate between which side the stop should go on...

...and which side the catch should go on...

...we opted to mount the catch to the wall to ensure less intrusion into the vestibule when the doors are shut. We would then mount the two stops to the French doors near the middle to allow each door to open the maximum amount. Wendy actually Googled the "correct" placement and found mixed opinions. 

Actual installation was a piece of cake. The assembly consists of the stop piece and a mounting plate with a bolt through it. Here it is completely disassembled.

I used the plate to mark the hole locations on the left door...

...then drilled a few pilot holes.

After screwing the first plate to the wall, I measured its location on the door to ensure the second stop would be installed in the same spot on the other door. (You can see where we're in need of another coat of high gloss paint on the doors. So annoying!)

I screwed the stop into place on the first plate and placed the catch on the end of the stop. Opening the door, I let the catch rest against the wall in its ideal location based on the stop and marked where the catch should sit with two faint pencil marks that I could easily erase later.

Much like the stop, the catch screwed onto a mounting plate. By removing the spring and silver catch strike, I could hold the catch in place on the wall while marking the concealed hole locations for the screws that affix the plate to the wall.

I once again drilled a few pilot holes (because pilot holes save you tons of headache) and screwed the mounting plate to the wall.

To install the catch, I just twisted it onto the mounting plate's threads and gave it a test. The install was a quick and successful endeavor. I repeated the same steps for the other door and took a look at the end results.

It worked well but didn't look great. The black catch against the white wall simply wasn't ideal.

To resolve this, I removed the catch, took out the spring and silver strike once again, and took the black piece to the basement to paint. I first applied a quick coat of primer with a foam brush followed by two coats of our white trim paint.

After allowing about two hours of dry time we re-installed the catches and were more than happy with the final results.

The black matte finished lent itself really nicely to being able to paint and change the color of the catch. Now the stops match the doors, and the catch matches the wall. Unless you're specifically looking for it, you really don't even notice them in place. I'm happy to say we'll no longer be going out with a bang through these French doors.

With one set of door stops down, we still have one to go. The interior door still needs a stop, but I think we're going the more traditional route and buying an antique wooden stop to mount directly to the baseboard. We'll fill you in on that when we actually locate and install one.

We'll also need to remove the French doors and put on another coat of paint due to some swelling that occurred during Hurricane Sandy. I made a rookie mistake and put a towel against the base of the doors to keep water from blowing under them. Unfortunately, this move kept moisture against the doors and it was absorbed into the wood. The end result being two doors that are pretty well stuck. I'll fill you in on the fix when I get around to making it in a few weeks.

What do you think of these door stops? Relatively unobtrusive and functional? Or a complete eyesore? Do you have a better stop that you can recommend? And do you think we're making the right move by using an antique wood stop on the interior door? I know this isn't the most gripping or exciting thing in the world, but like many home improvement items, it's a not-very-glamorous necessity that we still put a lot of thought into.

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For those of you new to our site, and for the readers who have blocked this long and drawn out project from their memory, to quickly recap: when our first dog Oliver was diagnosed with cancer in April 2010, we knew the time left with him was limited and precious. And since he was a first-floor only pup (his short legs made navigating our stairs a difficult venture), we wanted to stop our upstairs projects to be closer to him. (More on that here.) After six months of a total renovation freeze, we got a little of our DIY mojo back and started working on our vestibule. Here's our little buddy, checking on the early progress of the project.

The overall goal of the project was rather simple...restoration. At one point in our home's history, an owner decided to reconfigure the vestibule so that the main front door was flush with the front of the house. 

What this left us with was an awkward entry and front door configuration that was barely functional. When the front door swung in, anyone trying to enter our home was left with a tight squeeze as the door didn't fully open beyond the second door opening. It was a nightmare. 

Alex and I knew from the beginning that at some point we wanted to restore original function and move the front door back to its original location, inside the vestibule, and add French doors to the front of our home. From our basic inspection work we were able to determine this was surely the configuration when our house was built around or just after 1885. 

So despite its modest size of only 3' x 3', this project encompassed many aspects of DIY renovation and restoration including:

• The purchase, resizing, stripping, and refinishing of salvaged doors
• Replacing the panes of the French doors with salvaged, antique glass
• Stripping of the original molding and wainscoting 
• New basket weave marble tile
• Installation of an LED recessed light
• Locating period appropriate antique hardware, including an antique slide bolt
• Gilded transom house numbers
• Making the transom window operable
• Spring bronze weatherstripping
• Installing new door hinges (and coming a little unhinged in the process)
• Painting
• Letter slot peeping Toms (and dealing with my own paranoia) 
• Door knob deliberation
• Achieving a super shiny paint finish, reminiscent of 10 Downing Street
• Landing on the perfect shade of turquoise for the new front door

Whew! If you haven't already picked up on it, we at Old Town Home are guided by a mantra of "anything worth doing is worth doing right." We don't like to cut corners, and some may say that we go a bit overkill on any given project. (My husband, in particular, is guilty of this overkill mentality.) But hey, that's what makes us who we are. And for that matter, will soon make our renovation stretch into its second decade.

The one last final detail we had to tackle to officially call this project done was to apply a coat of primer and two coats of shiny black paint to the inside of the French doors. So we took advantage of the nice weather over the three day Presidents' day weekend to do just that. 

Because we were using 1Shot Lettering Enamel (a very high gloss oil paint), the doors had to be painted while laying flat, otherwise the paint would sag as it dried. So Alex took down the doors and relocated them to our super high tech and sophisticated paint area. Our paint area is so sophisticated that there are cracks in the ceiling that allow plaster sand to fall onto our work area, thus requiring Alex to apply tape and grocery bags over the cracks to keep sand out of our work. How awesome is that?

Next up, we removed the door hardware with the exception of the hinges. 

We kicked off the painting with a coat of the Chromatic Primer, which needed a minimum of 12 hours of drying time. It's a special primer that was required for the lettering enamel, and the same one we used for the front of the doors.

The next morning Alex got to work on the first coat of black paint. Another 24 hours of drying time elapsed and the next day he applied the final coat. We gave it a good 36 hours of drying time before reattaching the hardware and reinstalling the French doors in their new, final home. 

For the observent readers, yes, Alex is wearing the same painting outfit, and apparently wears those same clothes often. Perhaps we need to go on a "working on the house clothes" shopping trip.

Ok, back to our paint progress. Why black you might ask? I actually went a little against the grain and chose black for several reasons. 

• To pick up on the black in the floor tile, the black threshold, and the black cast iron stairs at the front of our home.
• Consistency of color. With these two small doors, that on occasion will remain open, I didn't want the choppy look of one color on one side, and one color on the other. This would be visible not only when they're open, but also through the panes of glass. 
• Black is a grounding color. With all of the white wainscoting and trim in the space, not to mention the intense amount of natural light and the turquoise door, I thought the room could handle a little black.

Am I worried it will make the space feel too small? No, not at all actually. With sight lines passing through the panes of glass to the street, not to mention the space is merely a "pass through" and not a room you spend time in, so I don't worry that the room will feel weighted down by the black.

And here's a look at the final end result as seen from the inside of the house. Personally, I really love it.

Here's a quick look back at some of the highlights of the project:

We began with a beat up, ugly, and only partially functional entry vestibule.

So we got into the project with a dream, an idea, and some demo.

We went looking at salvage yards and found a broken door.

And I mean some really broken doors.

We sunk months into lots of paint stripping and plaster patching.

And continued with extensive door paint stripping.

We felt like we stripped paint for months out of the most intricate of details.

We chose to tile the little space with a classic marble basket weave pattern.

And we were able to add function my making the inner transom operable with some salvaged hardware found on eBay.

We put in a lot of time and effort to widen the door ever so slightly. Note to self, if we ever do this again, buy a door that's larger than the opening, not smaller.

We bid a fond farewell to our old door while selecting the new colors.

And after much debate and a few problems, we settled on our an antique letter slot hardware.

The paint process was a long one with a lot of cure time.

And we fancified a bit with classic weather stripping through the use of spring bronze.

After months of work, we were finally able to enjoy our new door and door color!

Then turned our focus and a whole lot of effort to creating the French doors from salvaged side lites.

We removed some items that had been installed over the years to bring the opening back to it's original size.

And test fit our new French doors, once...twice...well more like hundreds of times.

Alex spent many hours on the window glazing process.

And after extensive research, he found a super high gloss enamel to make our shiny doors a reality.

Since she waited so patiently, Lulu got her first taste of the new view.

And we found the perfect antique slide bolt for the doors. We also figured out one had been in nearly the same spot at some point many years ago. It made us feel like we were really doing it right.

We chose a classic style for our new transom numbers.

And we used these same decorative cast iron steeple tipped hinges on the new doors that we used throughout the rest of the first floor. It's been a hunt to find all matching items, but well worth it.

We will be able to open the outer doors and the inner transom for a nice breeze.

And now we have an end result to be proud of. It's amazing how far our house and our neighbor's house have come.

Here's a little reminder of the ugly before. We could see the potential, but it was a distant sight.

Not only did we start this project to spend more time closer to our dog Oliver, but we dreamed of how he could enjoy the space, including gazing out through the French doors at squirrels high in the trees or at hot lady dogs walking down the street. Despite our best efforts, Ollie lost his battle to cancer a mere two weeks after we began work on the vestibule. 

For this reason, we dedicate the vestibule project to our snaggle toothed companion and take comfort knowing that our current crew members, Lulu and Mel, will love and appreciate the space as much as he would have. 

What are your thoughts on our end result? Is it all it should be after nearly a year and a half of effort? Perhaps we're just crazy and should have left it as it was? I don't know if I would agree to wait another year and a half to do it again, but I sure love the finished product.

As seen on...

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If you thought "the doorknob looks different" you'd be correct! If you've been keeping up with our vestibule project, you might remember that something about the doorknob felt a little off to us after we installed the french doors. We weren't thrilled with the height of the knob, nor were we in love with the bright white porcelain knob against the backdrop of the shiny new black paint. We were feeling so uneasy about the finished result that we actually threw it out there to you, our readers, to give us your completely honest no-holds-barred feedback on the look, seen here.

The overwhelming consensus was that we should start with the easy change of swapping out the knob to a darker color. So that's just what we did. Here's a close up look of the new knob, purchased for $18 from Mowery Antiques. 

As much as changing the height placement of the knob was something we gave careful consideration to, we decided against it (for now) for a couple of reasons:

• If we lowered the knob on the outside to the height that looked and felt right to us, we were concerned that the height on the inside of the vestibule would seem much too high. (This is because the inside of the vestibule is a step up from the outside.)
• We had gone to such care to ensure a perfect high gloss enamel paint finish, we are hesitant to drill a new hole, patch the old, and touch it all up, but Alex still says we can tackle it.

So we opted to go the simpler route of a knob switcheroo, and I have to say we're pretty pleased with the result. No longer do I feel that the knob stands out like a sore thumb. Now it's part of the overall look of the entry that welcomes all who enter to our home. 

Now the final step to completing the vestibule is applying two coats of the black paint to the inside of the french doors. 

But we'll wait until after Christmas to take that on -- we wouldn't want to have to take down our exterior door decorations after all! Thanks again to everyone who weighed in on the subject. We appreciate your feedback.

Speaking of feedback, what do you think of the new darker knob? Did it do the trick? Or are we just being lazy by trying to avoid the extra work of drilling, patching and painting? You were honest with us last time...let's hear what you have to say this time around.

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The options we debated between were:

1. Numbers on a plate or plaque directly on the house.
2. Numbers on the door.
3. Numbers in the transom.
4. Other (like painted on the sidewalk, graffiti on the stairs, or some other random display that may work in theory but would never work in reality).

After many thoughtful, insightful, and helpful comments from all of our readers, and after much deliberation the winner is...(drum roll please)...

3. Numbers in the transom with original glass!

It was a tough decision, and not one made lightly, largely due to the fact that we had purchased a leaded glass window for the space nearly nine years ago. Not only do I love the leaded glass, but I consider it an investment of both money and time. Time you might wonder? Well, the leaded glass, like many other things in our house, has been moved from one precarious location to another in our basement hellhole, and I consider it no small feat that it's survived the last nine years. I'm sure it will keep moving over the next several years and will ultimately be broken only when we finally figure out a place where we want to install it.  

But alas, I finally caved to Alex's pressure to pursue the numbers in the transom option, in part because I think it will look really classic, in part because I dreaded the thought of trying to keep the leaded glass clean, in part because most of our readers suggested this route, and in part because I didn't particularly love any of the other house number options. Lots of parts went into this decision, that's for sure.

We had a couple of options on how to proceed with these numbers. The classic approach was to apply gold leaf and hand paint the numbers and their black shadow/outline on the window ourselves. You might be able to guess, but Alex was pushing for this option. Though I have no doubt we could tackle this, there are just too many other projects going on right now, so I had to veto his gumption as I had found a nearly as authentic option that was far easier to implement.

We opted to work with a Washington, DC-based company called The House Number Lab. They offer a large assortment of number styles as well as materials to choose from, each in historically accurate and completely custom fonts and sizes that are tailored to our specific install. After careful consideration, and some internal debate, we settled on a 22 carat matte gold in "The Grant B" style font with a heavy drop shadow to the left in black. We think it's a classic font that will work well with the style of our home, but we went with the "B" option which introduces a small extra flourish on the numbers for a little extra oomph. Who knew there would be so many options? 

Honestly though we had a tougher time choosing the material than the font. It just boils down to the fact that we're just not big fans of gold. If you look around our house (or at us), you'll notice that our wedding rings, wedding china, picture frames, mirrors, and accessories all are silver. Chandeliers that once were brass or gold, I've long since spray painted another color. So it was tough for us to go against our silver tendencies and choose the more classic, and more historically accurate gold tone. But as a "meet you in the middle" decision, we went with the matte over the burnished gold, for a more muted hue.  

Glenn, owner of The House Numbers Lab, was great to work with. We opted to see proofs before having the numbers made -- an option that adds time to the order but is totally worth it in my opinion. Initially we placed the order for 5" high numbers, but after seeing the proof, and hanging the to-scale print out in our transom, I felt it looked just a little too imposing. After sending Glenn an email, he quickly sent us back 4" and 4.5" versions to take a look at. The small adjustment made all the difference, and we knew the 4" was just right. 

After a several weeks-long wait for our order (due to an expected delay by the gold supplier), our numbers arrived the middle of last week in a neatly packaged protective box. We were excited to get them up on the window as it marked a significant step toward the completion of our Curb Appeal 2.0, but with the weather cooling and the sun setting so early, we had to wait for a good warm weather day to apply them above 50 degrees. 

Yesterday was a downright balmy December day with highs approaching 60 degrees, so we decided to pull the trigger and go for it. The House Numbers Lab website includes detailed instructions on how to best install, and in addition to the number decals, the package comes with a plastic squeegee to smooth the numbers during install and a dry erase marker to properly mark the center of the window. We just needed to grab some supplies to clean the window and a pair of scissors, tape, a tape measure, and the ladder to aid in the install.

Alex kicked off the project by setting up the ladder to clean the windows, inside and out. The glass was a mess because of the road dirt that typically collects outside, so I'm always happy when a project calls for cleaning the transom window. 

He used a regular window cleaner followed by an alcohol based glass cleaner that we received years ago when installing our show glass doors. This is meant to leave an ultra clean surface that is perfect for the adherence of sticky substances to a clean window.

Once everything was clean, he measured the absolute center point of the transom glass and made a cross using the dry erase marker on the outside of the glass to give the numbers a guide for install.

The next step was to tape the numbers to the inside of the window and take a step back to be sure they were level, centered, and looked the way we wanted them too. This is an important step because there is no turning back once they are up on the glass. 

We decided that they needed to come up a little bit on the right since the window is a little out of level. So we made that slight adjustment and Alex got to work sticking them onto the glass. 

Following the instructions closely, Alex peeled, stuck, squeegeed, and smoothed until the numbers were fully in place.

He then carefully (and I mean carefully -- it took him forever) peeled the backing off of the numbers. I think we were both getting excited, but he took his time to be sure the numbers didn't peel off of the house.

A few minutes later we had the numbers fully installed. The final step was to wipe off the red cross on the outside of the window and remove the extra dots from the interior.

The final and fully installed numbers turned out really nice! It was wonderful, it didn't require either of us spending hours with gold leaf, stencils, and free hand painting over the course of several days, though I'm sure that would have been very fun. (Sarcasm fully intended.) 

And for those of you following the front vestibule progress and our debate over the color of the door knob, we've pulled the trigger and ordered a new (well, old actually) knob in black. It's on its way. 

What do you think? Did we make the right choice? Do you like the gold we chose? I'd say we're both really happy with our selection. Our house numbers really fit in with the rest of the area and the look is very historically accurate to the period of our home. I think we can call this one mission accomplished.

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As a follow up, here are two "renderings" of the knob with its height adjusted.

Anyhow, onto better news about the french doors. Yesterday we covered almost all of the hardware we need to complete the project, but the last item we mentioned in the list was the slide bolt, and we didn't elaborate on it. I didn't cover it in yesterday's post because I feel like it needed its own post. Yep, I'm that excited about it!

Our french doors are installed in a typical configuration. We've opted to use a locking rim lock to function as the knob and latch assembly, but to function properly the right side door with the catch on it must be fixed in its location, otherwise the locked doors will just push open. At the same time, the door needs to be able to open easily when we need to walk through. To solve this problem we turned to a slide bolt that is used to fix the door in position when the doors are shut, giving the other door something sturdy to latch onto. Sadly, we didn't have a spare slide bolt in our stash of goodies, so we needed to turn elsewhere.

There are two primary types of slide bolts, surface mount and mortise. The surface mount are affixed to the interior of the door's surface, while the mortised bolts are recessed into a groove cut into the front or side of the door. We decided the surface mount would work best for our doors, so we focused our attention there.  

We started our search for the slide bold at The Brass Knob, our favorite (and really only) DC salvage yard. We found a couple of cool things while looking around, but unfortunately there weren't any good slide bolts to be found that day.

Since The Brass Knob didn't have any slide bolts that matched our needs I started looking around on the various Internet antique salvage sites and eBay. I luckily stumbled across a few non mortise slide bolts on Ed Donaldson antiques. I love this site and have ordered quite a few items from them over the years, and would you believe it, they had exactly what we needed.

I found a circa 1885 surface mount decorative cast iron slide bolt with catch. We ordered it on Sunday and had it by Wednesday. When I opened the package and looked at it I realized it was perfect for what we needed. The paint had already been removed, clear coat applied, and it came with black slot head screws. It was ready to be installed.

This slide bold is cast iron, is in excellent working condition with a fully functional spring, and the chain and loop at the end of it is in near perfect shape. It cost $65, but I was rather surprised the price wasn't much higher.

But what was the best part of the piece? When I turned it over I noticed the manufacurers logo stamped on the back plate. I was shocked when I noticed it was the same as the lock we were using on the door that I had purchased some eight years ago and held onto just waiting for an opportunity where we could use it. Total serendipity in home restoration if ever I had seen it.

Wait, it gets better. Back when we bought the house we noticed a weird notch in the molding above the old front door. We never knew what it was for or why it was there, but it always struck us as odd. The notch was slightly off center and had no identifiable characteristics other than multiple screw holes. We always assumed it was for a door bell or screen door latch, but really based that on nothing more than not having a better idea.

Back when I was working on the molding, I carefully filled that notch with epoxy and sanded it to match the surrounding molding. If you look at it today, you'd be hard pressed to find exactly where it was. We installed the repaired molding and didn't think twice about that notch, at least not until I was mounting the slide bolt.

While holding the slide bolt up for sizing on the right door the reason for the seemingly random notch hit me. It was where a catch for a slide bolt that was once on the left door of a long lost door set had been! I held the catch we had received up to the patched location and realized that it was exactly the same size as the catch we had received. This was too good to be true. We had selected a slide bolt to work with our new doors and it turns out to be possibly the same slide bolt that used to be on the left door back when there used to be double doors. We had come full circle, but in the case of the new doors, we're mounting it on the other side!

I determined the correct location for the slide bolt, drilled some pilot holes, and had it up in no time.

Though the old slide bolt catch was notched into the molding, I opted to simply screw it to the front of the molding. I worked too hard on this molding to start chiseling it away. I will end up putting a small spacer in the catch to account for the extra molding depth. This will ensure the door doesn't rock in the opening.

Once the slide bolt was installed we took a step back to admire a job well done. Almost immediately, Lulu took a step in to admire her new spot to people watch. 

We still need to paint the interior of the doors black (and maybe change the lock location), so we'll need to take each door out and remove the hardware to do that, but it's looking great. But we got lucky in so many ways with the slide bolt, so I'm not going to force it. I think the french doors, front door, and vestibule project has really come along nicely. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. For the smallest "room" in the house, this sure has been a MAJOR effort!

What do you think about the slide bolt? Pretty cool Victorian feature, or should we have gone with a small and simple one? I think you know my answer to that question.

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