Amity: thanks for the work to post info on faux painting! I really appreciate your comments--and those of the others with faux finish experience. I had hoped to give it a try on the basement stairwall today, but no can do. This is a "distracted day" and a "bad eyes" day* so I'm not up to the task of reading posts carefully let alone working on tiny details, but maybe by Sunday I can really concentrate on the directions for the technique and follow the links thoughtfully? Meanwhile, I'm gonna prime the metal doors in anticipation of a tan base coat, which will eliminate the "moby dicks" in the room until a final solution is chosen. Worldmom: Your situation indeed sounds much like ours. Your carpenter has a good idea and if he knows what he's doing, this is a great solution. Is your oak-faced metal door with chalkboard ready to photograph? Even if it's not mounted in room? Am eager to see edge details close up. (I had threatened to use chalkboard paint on metal door in earlier plan for the room, but the lobby has become more formal and there will be some large framed art pieces on walls also so don't want door to rival them. Have considered a mirror in the center panel, surrounded by oak frame like you're doing.) ____ Should anyone care why we're having a hard time deciding on doors, continue reading. We've got a pair of oak two-panel doors for the lobby closet bypass doors and will add a single matching oak two-panel on the top of basement stair in pocket door. These are Jeld-Wen from HD. DH feels that these compliment the "shaker" style of cabs and he just likes them. He bought them months ago so they're a given. There are actually two metal doors in lobby. The one to garage is solid, no trim, and that's the one seen from adjacent spaces including kitchen. The other leads out to front step and has built-in full-length glass with embedded blind and that can be see from dining room and deck. So, that means I've got a one-pane and a two-pane contradiction in the room already. There are 3 more doors to be purchased: two that lead to the dining room--one from kitchen and one from lobby--and one on new kitchen closet. We've anguished over the choice for the kitchen closet especially because for a while we couldn't find a louvered oak door that was affordable and that fit the pattern of the other doors. But...there's another wrinkle as well. In the dining room, we have one of the old Atrium doors (like French door but with one fixed and one swinging door) to deck. That's a pair of full-length glass doors. This style is more like the front door, if you're keeping score here. We've decided that the two doors into the dining room have to match that style, so unlike the two-panel ones nearby, we'll have two full-length matte glass doors on the routes to dining room, one a pocket door and one a hinged one. Plus, we've finally found a manufacturer that carries oak louvered doors in two-panel and one-panel styles, so we're dithering about whether to spend the money for them instead of the cheaper "hemlock" one in the Jeld-Wen catalog. The company with the new choices in oak louvered doors is Stallion doors. Louvers, matte glass, oak. Haven't finished comparison pricing all these doors, but the cost is steep. We couldn't possibly have afforded an oak firedoor as well. We're throwing out a plain oak hollow core pre-hung that's left over from old kitchen because it won't match anything else, so we're eating the cost of redundancy also. And, as I said, we donated the old oak firedoor before we knew we could have reused it. AARGH! [*Yes, I do have bad eyes days. Has to do with muscles of eye and close focus and prisms. I have 4 pairs of glasses and switch among them looking for a good match, but some days, sigh, nothing works. Distracted days are another matter. Nothing to do with physiology.]

Well… if nothing else, you all can understand why I’ve struggled to find a solution that is aesthetically pleasing, and practical, and doesn’t require committing to a massive, expensive project… The ceiling is a lot of things… and yes, the angles are wild. Right now it has beaded wood (like beadboard, but larger)… which looks crazy, and separates at the seams in the winter months. We’re planning to sheet rock the ceiling, but not flatten it off. I DO think flattening it would be calmer, but I really like a higher ceiling no matter what, even if it means strange angles. I actually really like that half wall idea, or curving it so is less stark… both are something I never thought of. Even just looking at it with the photoshopped half wall makes me look at the room differently. I should say my husband is dead set against keeping the bath… and does not care at all about long-term value. I haven’t decided whether that’s a battle I feel so strongly about that I decide to take it on. I guess part of me is tempted by the challenge of “cute-ning” it up. Which I do think could be done, but also think it will never be as clean, as if we took it out. As far as the idea of swapping spaces… we considered some version of that, and also considered moving the bathroom to where the refrigerator is now… but that would require building a whole other wall that would still butt out into the room, plus, the dining room entrance is cut on an angle, so the wall would need to accommodate that… we had laid tape out on the floor, looking at other layout options, and none of seemed much better than what we have now! Thank you all so much for taking the time to think about ways this can be better... I REALLY appreciate it!! p.s.- Jen, we kind of hoped our neighbors might start chipping in for the repairs… since it benefitted them, as much as us!

I use a thin screwdriver and hammer and tap lightly on the screwdriver with the tip on the screw slot at an angle to chip out the paint until the slot is exposed enough to use. If the slot is stripped and you can't unscrew them even after tapping with a hammer, go to the hardware store and get an "easy out" and a drill bit of the correct size to use with it. You drill a small hole in the center of the screw head and then use the easy out to back the screw out of the hole. This assumes you have a drill. A power screwdriver helps with this too.

If they had tapcons through them they are beyond toothpics. Anyway, that technique is not good for heavy exterior doors that are always working the hinges and shifting the stress. I would drill them out 5/8" and glue face-grain plugs into the holes (use epoxy), chisel/sand them flush and drill brand new holes. My preferred wood for this birdseye maple because of the interlocking grain it is loath to split, and the screw holes will take any stress the door will give it. If you could get the frame out, tee-nuts installed from the hidden side would also be great, use a #10 thread. But you need to position them accurately. In the past I have also inserted a rectangle of 3/4" plywood between the frame and the studs; then used longer screws to reach it. It was an unusual case where 3/4" was available behind the frame. Another dowel technique is to take off the casing and carefully bore 1/2" holes that meet the hinge screw locations, drive in dowels, then pre-drill before putting the screws back in; this orients the grain of the dowel better to take a screw than the dowel-plug method, which is into weaker end-grain material. You could try simply filling the holes with 5 min epoxy thickened with wood flour, let it harden completely and re-drill the holes. If you wax the screw threads they will be able to be removed, if the glue is still curing they may cement themselves in. Casey