Entry #4
July 11, 2023 — 1:30 PM
Hot today. The upstairs hall holds the heat like a jar. Dust hangs in the light from the front window, busy as gnats. I set a fan in the doorway of the northwest bedroom and took a look at the casing, which was split at the miters and cupped away from the wall. Easy work for a slow midday.
The jamb reads tired. On the hinge side the paint is built up in ridges, twelve coats at least, and the stop has a shallow groove where the old latch kissed it for years. I ran a utility knife along the caulk line and worked a thin bar under the edge. The casing let go with that dry pine crackle. Smelled like old shellac when it lifted.
Under the casing I found bare wood gray as cardboard, nail holes hand-set and peened. Someone had scratched two letters along the edge hidden by the trim: E.B. A light hand, not deep. I penciled the same on the back of the new piece so I’ll remember where it sat. No reason it has to mean anything.
With the trim off you can see the bones. Lath and horsehair plaster on the hall side, rock-hard, and a thinner skim in the bedroom. The wall reads thicker on the hall face by a bit. I set the tape across: 5 1/8 inches hall to jamb face, 4 3/4 inches bedroom to jamb face. The jamb isn’t centered in the thickness. It’s proud, then shy.
I checked for plumb with the four-foot level. Bubble sits a tick to the line. Hinge side runs out about 1/8 inch over four feet. At the header, left to right, there’s a belly. The opening at the top gave me 31 5/8. At the floor: 31 3/8. I had written 31 1/4 in my notebook from the first walk-through, but I might have read the tape wrong or the door swelled with the heat. Wood moves. Memory moves, too.
I shaved the latch edge of the slab with a block plane to take off the bind—thin curls that stuck to my wrist. A couple of cedar shims behind the jamb brought the bubble true-enough for a house like this. I set two screws where the nails had lost their bite and eased the casing back on with fresh finish nails. The split miter closed when I clamped it. I’ll sand and fill later.
Standing back, the reveal still looks a hair uneven on the hall side, though the numbers don’t argue enough to chase it. A chalk line along the baseboard shows a slight belly in the plaster, maybe 3/8 over ten feet. The doorway isn’t in perfect conversation with the hall. Old houses are often uneven. They settle in their own language.
The hallway runs straight to the stair head, a clean sightline in the afternoon, but I’ve started seeing it in measurements now—widths, drops, the thin change where plaster meets wood. If I look too long the line goes soft at the edges, like heat over a road. Probably the fan stirring dust against the light.
I’ll keep an eye on the numbers as I move room to room. It’s good practice, and it keeps me from guessing. Still: the south hallway feels a touch narrower at night than it does in daylight. I almost crossed that out as soon as I wrote it.
— Thomas Hale