Jammin' the jamb

In our master bathroom we have finally reached the "finishing touches" stage. Over are the days of major construction (ahem, aside from the husband and me musing whether to remove the ceiling to create a vaulted ceiling above the bathroom ... it's really just a crazy idea ...for now ..maybe later. You know, when we've pleasantly forgotten about how rotten a thing dry wall dust really is.) and we have a basic room with working fixtures! Yay us!

[Before: In its former life as Duplex, our master bathroom was the kitchen for the

upstairs apartment. It was nothing but gross and grungy. It gets great light, though.]

And here, for a collective sigh of relief, are two of the "close to the finishing line" shots

[Getting there: baseboard in place but not yet nailed and caulked]

There's very little that's not new. We have

new plumbing
updated electric
new subfloor
partially new drywall
new tile
fresh paint
new baseboards
new fixtures (sink, clawfoot tub and toilet)

The next item on my project list for this room was "frame door" so I investigated the design of our existing doors throughout the house and started poking around on the internet for pointers as to how to frame and trim out the door between our master bath and the adjoining dressing room. The nice thing about a historic home like ours is that you don't have to worry about perfect miter cuts.
While door and window casing is put together from more pieces than the average modern casing, it is cut at square angles and stacked rather than cut at intricate angles that require mega accurate measuring and cutting.
Lucky me!
I found this carpentry ebook online and found it rather helpful in learning to name the various parts of a door frame and how exactly things go together http://www.woodworking-online.com/chapter8/1.html. That's how I learned that a door jamb had to come first. The door jamb is the vertical inside portion of the frame onto which you secure your door.

I hopped over to the Blue Box and after browsing the aisles I decided to pick up this simple door jamb kit. It had all the pieces in the right amounts in the right widths which cut down on any unnecessary guesswork and measuring on my part. I -did- measure my door opening before going to the store, though, to make sure the jamb was wide enough. Live and learn, baby, live and learn.

Fortunately, I got to reap the rewards of having had great contractors build the wall and door opening. The existing door frame was plumb and level so all I really had to do (and did) was measure the length of each side, cut the 'legs' to the appropriate length, measure the space for the header and cut that one as well and then slide the whole frame into the opening and tapping it lightly with the hammer for a nice flush fit.

Tada! Our door way started looking like an actual door way right away, even though the casing aka the trim along the outside of the door frame was still missing. A handful of nails later we had a jamming jamb and were ready to move on to the actual casing. More on that tomorrow!