Hallelujah, the bathroom door latches! Since we moved into the house there has not been 100% privacy in the bathroom. We’ve had guests over for dinner, a housewarming party, a number of vacationing guests – and they’ve all had to use the bathroom with the door leaning shut, but not fully closed. The latch was not lined up with the hole for some reason (actually, that seems to be the case with about 80% of our doors) and therefore the door could never be fully closed. When my dad was staying with us he suggested chiseling a piece away so that the strike plate could be repositioned to line up with the latch. Patrick and I (or was it maybe just me?) cringed at the thought of having to chisel away wood from the door. So now a few months later we decided to give in and Patrick got out the chisel…

…and voilà! We have a closing bathroom door. Our guests can now have some privacy! “Some” being the keyword as the closing door doesn’t mean a locking door. Right now we’re trying to decide whether or not to buy a new mortise lock set. None of our doors came with a key, so it would be kind of nice to at least be able to lock the bathroom. We’ve been eyeing some that have the thumbturn on the inside and a key for the outside. In the meanwhile I’ve been in the process of scrubbing away at the old glass door knob and mortise set to get the paint off with the help of some Goof Off 2. So at least while we decide we can have some nicer looking (unpainted) handles.