Door Refinishing / Pocket Doors
Pocket door refinishing in St. Louis.
Pocket doors are one of the defining features of St. Louis's historic homes. We refinish them in place — carefully.
A signature of St. Louis's historic architecture.
Pocket doors were standard in late 19th and early 20th century St. Louis construction. The homes of Central West End, Lafayette Square, Compton Heights, Tower Grove, and Shaw often have them in parlors, dining rooms, and between formal spaces. They're a structural feature of the architecture — you can't remove them without significant work — and they're a character feature that defines these rooms.
When pocket doors are in poor condition — finish worn, wood darkened, paint applied over original stain — it reads throughout the whole room. When they're right, they're quietly remarkable.
How pocket door refinishing works.
Pocket doors can't be transported to the shop — the hardware is built into the wall. We work on them in place, which requires a different approach than board-up door work.
The door panel is pulled from the pocket as far as it will travel. We work on the accessible surfaces with appropriate solvents and hand tools, strip the finish, stain, and apply a new polyurethane topcoat. The process is methodical — it takes longer per door than a standard slab job — but the result is a door that looks like it belongs in the room it was built for.
In some cases, the door can be fully removed from the track for better access. We assess each situation and proceed with the method that gives the best result with the least risk to the hardware and the wall.
Preserving original pocket door hardware.
Pocket door hardware in St. Louis's historic homes is often original — brass pulls, mortise locks, original track systems. We work around it carefully. We're not replacing hardware or rebuilding pockets; we're refinishing the wood surface while leaving the mechanical elements intact.
If hardware is in poor condition and the client wants it addressed, we can recommend specialists — but that's a separate scope from what we do.
EPA Certified for pre-1978 pocket doors.
The finish on pocket doors in pre-1978 homes almost certainly contains lead. Because pocket doors are worked on in place, containment and HEPA filtration are especially important. Sue Wheeler is an EPA Certified Lead Removal. Every pre-1978 pocket door project includes proper containment and documented cleanup.