What's Behind Door #1

This is Door #1 this week.

I personally framed in, hung this door and trimmed it out a few years ago.  This was one of Mom's long time wishes - a door on the hot water heater closet.  Before the opening was covered by a piece of wall paneling, backed by wallboard, and screwed in to the wall.  It was a giant pain in the butt to  access the hot water heater, not to mention cumbersome and heavy. Okay - just plain stupid!  Mom found the narrow door and enlisted my construction skills to make it happen. 

I had to add a few 2 x 4's and some lathe to get the opening to size - which suddenly became an issue now that we needed to get the heater out of the space.  Well, it turned out that since I was the one to build it, I was the perfect person to be here when the plumber arrived.

I removed the door and the trim work.  The plumber grabbed his Sawzall and cut out one of the 2 x 4's framing the space.  It was non-load bearing, so all was well.  That gave him just enough width to wrestle the old unit out.  Getting the new heater in became a two man job (not me!), as it had to be lifted up and wrangled around the existing pipes, before being lowered into position. 

The 2 x 4 was replaced, the door rehung and the trim work nailed back into place and we are good to go.  And I now know exactly what needs to be done for the next time, which hopefully won't be for many years!