Hi, I live in a victorian terrace, 2 up, 2 down. The living room is accessed by walking through the corridor into the kitchen and looping back through the kitchen, under the stairs, into the living room. it just seems odd. There used to be a door into the living room just inside the front door. I know this as you can tell by the location of a light switch on the wall and by tapping the wall I can hear a hollow there. The plan is to knock this door through and block off the existing doorway into the kitchen. The plan is to then decorate the living room but not the hall way so I guess my question is whether it's possible to reinstate the doorway in a clean enough manner to be able to make a door surround and make it look tidy from the hall... almost like no work has taken place. We had big plans to do this work in addition to redesigning the kitchen and tackling the hall but we've discovered that we have a little one on the way so we would now like to take a modular approach to spread the cost. Cheers, Chris
Providing no lintel is required to be put in and the old opening is indeed hollow I.e. a stud partition, then a good carpenter being careful and neat should be able to do it, yes.
I'd bet my favourite guitar on it that it is a stud partition. So you don't think it's a DIY job? I'm reasonably handy (my bathroom renovation came out well after loads of good advice from yourself!) and I'm currently smashing through a bedroom project and garden project so I'll take most things on.
No it's certainly doable, get yourself a padsaw and cut a patch out in the middle to see what you're dealing with, measure the opening width and depth then get a door lining to fit the hole, cut the rest out. Heightwise you will need 80 1/2inches and the width you're governed by the original opening in order to fit the lining without trimming it. You can afford a small bit of damage around the opening as your architrave should cover it.
Sweet. That's pretty much how I thought it would be done. So I can go to any height with the door but width will be determined by the original doorway?
Ha ha, actually I've just been reading the weirdest things found thread... maybe is have something to contribute there! I do own a multi tool which I was intending to use so good to know I got the gear and the right idea!