My grandmother lived on old money.  She lived in one of those houses that you see in the movies.  It was an old victorian fantasy land.  She was also a little crazy.  She didn’t like central heating or A/C DC.  She said that it made us weak.  So every chilly Christmas when we visited her, we built fires and heated rooms one at a time.  We really used those pocket doors.  I remember Rupert slamming his head into them over and over again before the brain damage. Those doors were solid.  I always wished I had some pocket doors for my own children to torture themselves with.

I bought the house from a wierdo.  His name was Timmy.  He lived here his whole life in his tiny childhood room.  He had a sink in his room.  His parent’s room was empty.  He kept obsessive notes.  I hope he doesn’t read this.  Anyway, his family did some of the most insane thing that I’ve ever seen done to a house.  What is it with old people? I’m not sure.  Probably noone is.  From banging on the walls, I thought I might have pocket doors, but that they had probably been removed when they had forced air heating installed.  But I couldn’t leave it at that I had to check.

They had covered up the molding with more molding, hiding the pocket door space.  They ripped off the pocket door hardware so it would fit behind the molding. They replaced the pocket doors with a curtain.  What?

We finally bit the bullet one night after a few drinks. The most we had to lose was nailing some molding back on, so we got out a few hammers and went wild.

The left door sticks a little, but aside from that and some pieces of hardware that were removed, they’re in great shape. As we pulled the doors all the way out to vaccuum some of the dust left in the walls, we were greeted with piles of treasures…old paper-dolls, play money, them remnants of a pack of playing cards.

We have a bit of clean-up where the edges were painted and still have to replace the missing hardware, but what a great surprise!