A little pocket door patch
(I apologize for the terrible lighting in these photos. My pocket door lives in a spot where there is NEVER any natural light.)
A while back, there was an unfortunate meeting between a skateboard and my laundry room pocket door.
Because pocket doors are encased in the wall, replacing them means taking apart a lot of moulding and whatnot, so initially I was all, "WAAAAHHHHH!!"
But then I thought, "Hey, why not at least try to fix it?" If the repair went badly, it's not like I'd have been out a whole lot of time or money.
So, I took some spackle and shredded paper, and proceeded to fill the hole (the shredded paper gives the spackle a bit more heft and helps the patch to hold together better.)
I did several coats of this (with paper just on the first go-round) and sanded it down at the end.
For the last coat of spackle, I took a little scrapbooking tool and tried to mimic the lines of the initial door pattern, and then I sanded and painted the patch.
The fix isn't perfect by any means, and I think it still could use one more coat of paint.
But considering what it looked like before...
...I feel like this is a significant improvement.
And I think we are not going to bother replacing the door.
From your photos the patch looks great. I never knew that about using shredded newspaper with spackle but I'm filing it away for future reference. You made me laugh first thing with "I was all, “WAAAAHHHHH!!”"! So funny 🙂
I needed one of those crying emojis. 😉
Your words were much better than any emoji!
Baked 2 pumpkin pies' from scratch enough. Used 2 premolded frozen pie crusts a large can of fresh pureed pumpkin from, ahem, a can. Added evaporated milk, and spices. A way, way, better result than buying a major supermarket store made pie!
Congrats to you Kristen on leading the way to encourage others' to do simple repairs. Esp on hemming towels, which is something I can give a go at...
Richard W. Zorniak in rather damp but mild Vancouver BC.
I like the approach of "attempt the repair first before you replace." I mean, what did this repair cost you? $5?
I'm trying to get better at this as I have a few repairs to work on at home that I should really get on (though most are of the sewing/darning type I do have a faucet to repair for my grandmother.
It actually cost me nothing out of pocket! I already had the spackle, and of course, I already had shredded paper too.
Looks great, love a low cost fix you can do yourself.
Great job!
I love it! I honestly can't tell that there was a ding in it before. The shredded paper trick is genius! I wish I'd known about it while I was spackling a ridiculous amount of holes in our walls!
As always, you amaze me at ingenious way and implements of repair!!! Great job!
Bravo, Kristen! This should be featured on a show, highlighting frugal fixes around the house!
Hey, good for you! And you didn't need whiskers to do it! 😉
Darn straight. 😉
I think you did a great job! I, too, am chipping away very slowly at little home projects that have been nagging at me for awhile. I just recently painted my front door instead of replacing it and this past weekend I painted my stairs.
Thank you!
We must be on the same wavelength because I just painted my door too. 😉
I am in a kick of painting my exterior doors black on both sides. With three sons (and eleventy billion of their sweet friends) I need doors that do not show scuffs, fingerprints or schmutz. So far I really love it. Just that detail makes the house look as if we take better care of it than we do.
Looks great, just like a natural indentation of the wood. DIY-ing these kinds of things is so satisfying, isn't it? Thanks for the tip about using paper scraps, was not aware of it before.
Yeah, it works a bit like the paper tape you use when you spackle drywall seams. And who doesn't have shredded paper sitting around at home??
Genius! I also didn't know about using the shredded paper. I love how you "recreated" the pattern of the wood. I think only you will be able to tell that it had been patched. Most people aren't going to be on their hands and knees looking at the bottom of your laundry door anyway. Great job!
Yes, especially since it's at the bottom of the door. Unless you're looking for it, you don't see it. Yay!
Heck yeah! Looks great!
I did a patch like that on an interior door that met with an unfortunate accident right at eye level. Let's just say that my husband has issues at times recognizing just how close he is to something when carrying a ladder. I know it's there and can see the patch in the right light, but honestly, not a soul has mentioned it, even people who are familiar to us enough to say, "Uh-oh, I see you had to patch your door," such as our siblings and grown kids, so I doubt anyone else has even realized there's a patch there. Kristen, I'm willing to bet that no one on earth, unless they read your blog, will know you patched that. Mine's been patched for at least five years, and holding up well. Good job, and congrats on thinking to repair instead of replace.
Ooh, that's great if they can't even notice it at eye level!
Wow! Impressive! We have 2 pocket doors in our home, and I hear ya about the hassle it creates for repairs. Glad you found a good solution. I DO love the functionality of pocket doors, however. In our smallish home, every inch of floor space is valuable.
Wow! That looks amazing! Filing this away for the future. With a house full of boys it will come in handy one of these days.
Looks great - I needed your skillz when my son did that to my laundry door. I patched it, but it's not near as elegant a fix as yours!
Congratulations on a creative and inexpensive repair. We have a pocket door, which I insisted on having installed. Now the pocket door is stuck & won't open all the way & it's challenging to wiggle through. So we're looking at around $400 to cut a hole in the wall in the adjacent room & repair it. Not sure when we'll do this. I can certainly think of better ways to spend $400. By the way, thanks for your Aldi's post! I live in Atlanta and my Aldi's is practically across the street from Trader Joe's. So I went after reading your article & another bloggers. Wow! Organic grass fed ground beef is around $5.50 per pound compared to $7.50 at TJ's & even more at Whole Foods. Plus I bought a 1/2 gallon of organic milk for only $3 which exactly 1/2 the price of a gallon at Trader Joe's. So now when we run out milk, I have more ready to go without having to go to the store on short notice. We drink both whole and skim milk in our family so I don't want to have 4 gallons in the frig at a time. Have a great day!
Yay! I'm so glad that Aldi is working out for you.
We have had to do this same type of repair on our pantry door in our former and current homes. That's just what happens when you have boys in the house who for some reason prefer to close the door with their foot! And you are right, it's not perfect, but good enough. It has also provided 2 of my son's "Remember when..." stories.