MERIDIAN & LOCKE, DOOR RESTORERS · OLDSTONE ROW & PEMBERTON LEA · BENCH ESTABLISHED 1979
The 1927 door was built by people who expected it to outlive them. So were we.
Meridian & Locke restore, re-hang and — where the original is truly gone — re-draw the swing-out and sectional doors of the district’s older houses: joinery re-glued, panels matched from reclaimed stock, hardware re-forged to pattern, and the whole hung on modern track with torsion springs sized to the door’s honest aged weight. The face keeps its century. The physics get this one.
Two hundred and forty doors returned to their houses since 1979 · salvage yard on Oldstone Row open Saturdays · (555) 028-5561 · workshop@meridianlocke.example
SALVAGE NOTE — the yard holds matched panels, stiles and a hardware rack from forty-odd doors this district has lost. If your door is missing a piece, bring a photograph or the piece itself: matching it is what the pile is for.
What we do
What the bench takes on
The full restoration
Door off, strip to joinery, every mortise re-glued, rotted rails cut back and scarfed in matched old-growth stock, panels replaced from the salvage pile or cut to match, hardware re-forged where it is worn — then the whole re-hung on modern track, a torsion pair wound to the door’s weighed pounds, and a finish matched to whatever century of weather the house wants kept. From $2,900, six to ten weeks on the bench.
The re-hang, physics only
For doors whose face is sound and whose everything-else is a menace: original sections kept and re-fastened, new track and drums, springs sized to the door as it weighs today, rollers replaced with nylon so the century above them stays quiet. The street never knows; the homeowner stops wondering if the door will close twice. From $1,450.
The re-drawing, for doors already lost
Where fire, developer or 1974 already took the original, we re-draw it — from the neighbor’s surviving twin, the tax photos, the hinge shadows in the brick — and build the replacement in the old species with the old proportions. It is the most honest kind of new: documented as a drawing, built like the original, marked as ours on the bottom rail. From $6,800.
The bench, in six movements
How a restoration runs
The same sequence since 1979, because it is the sequence the wood itself dictates — the only variable between doors is what the stripping reveals.
The house call
We come to the door, not the reverse: photographs, measurements, a magnet and a moisture meter, and the question that starts every restoration — what does the house believe this door is?
The stripping, at the bench
Paint and putty come off slowly and cold, because heat lies about wood. What is revealed decides the whole job: sound joinery, honest rot, and the ghost lines of the original finish.
The repair
Re-glue every open mortise, scarf new old-growth timber where water won, replace the shattered panels from the salvage pile or cut to match the ghosts. Repairs are made to be found by the next restorer, not hidden from them.
The hardware
Straps and hinges re-forged to pattern at the same fire, springs wound to the door’s weighed pounds — the century above and the mechanics below introduced properly for the first time in decades.
The re-hang & the test
Modern track behind the old face, rollers of nylon, and the balance test the door has not passed since the Coolidge administration: opener off, door to waist height, and it holds.
The record
Every restoration leaves with a written record — what was found, what was done, what was replaced and from where — filed with us and nailed (figuratively) to the job. The next century’s restorer will want it.
Bench card, 2026
Restoration, re-hang, re-drawing — the rates
Priced by the door and the day, quoted after the house call, and unchanged after the quote — rot discovered at the bench is our education, not your invoice.
The full restorationfrom $2,900
Strip, re-glue, scarf, match, re-forge, re-hang, finish · six to ten weeks at the bench
The re-hang, physics onlyfrom $1,450
Original face kept · new track, drums and matched torsion pair · nylon rollers
The re-drawing, door already lostfrom $6,800
Documented re-build in the old species and proportions, marked as ours
The house call & report$120, credited
Door read, report written, odds given honestly — credited against any bench work
Salvage matching, per piecefrom $40
Panels, stiles, sash and hardware matched from the Oldstone Row yard
Annual oiling & balance check$85
For every door we have returned to a house — the maintenance its second century wants
From the bench books
Doors returned to their houses
Six pages from the bench books — restorations, re-hangs and one re-drawing, photographed the week each went back up.
Repairs made to be found
Every splice is marked, every new panel labelled on its reverse, and a written record travels with the job. Restorations that hide their work steal from the next century’s restorer — we build so they will find ours and approve.
The bench position
Why restore instead of replace
Because the district’s old doors are old-growth lumber no longer for sale at any price, joinery cut by hands with time, and hardware from forges that closed with the street they served — none of which arrives in a crate from a catalogue. A replacement, however good, is a copy of what the house already owns. Restoration keeps the original in service and costs, most years, half of an honest replica — with the salvaged panels staying on the house they were milled for, which is a kind of arithmetic the ledger never shows.
Forty-seven seasons
The bench books, in figures
Asked before every first bench job
Questions from the doorstep
The five the house call always ends on. The workshop line answers the rest between eight and six; the yard answers on Saturdays.
Is my old door worth restoring?
If its frame is fundamentally sound and its species is old-growth — cedar, fir, the true mahoganies — the answer is almost always yes, and the house call says so in writing with the odds attached. When a door is genuinely past it, we say that too, and the salvage yard buys what the house can no longer use.
What does the re-hang change about my door?
Nothing you can see. Behind the face: modern track, drums sized to the opening, a torsion pair matched to the door’s weighed pounds, and nylon rollers that ask nothing of the joinery. The street photographs identically; the person opening it notices everything.
Where do replacement panels come from?
The salvage yard on Oldstone Row — panels, stiles and sash recovered from the district’s losses over five decades, matched by species, age and saw pattern. What the pile lacks, we cut from reclaimed old-growth and finish to blend, marking the reverse so the record stays honest.
Can you make a safe door out of a beautiful one?
That is precisely the re-hang: photo-eyes and auto-reverse on the operator, a balance the springs actually hold, and hardware that keeps the door on its track when the wind finds it. Beauty and safety are not negotiators here; they are the same job done in two centuries’ habits.
How long does a restoration take?
Six to ten weeks on the bench for a full restoration, two days for a re-hang, and the better part of a year for a re-drawing built from photographs. The door you lend the bench comes back older in care and younger in function — the calendar is the only patient part.
They found the twin of our shattered panel three doors down — a door lost in the eighties, sitting in the salvage yard with its saw pattern still honest. The panel they matched is older than the house extension. Our conservator friend wept, briefly, over the scarf joints being marked.
The re-hang took two days and the street noticed nothing, which was the brief. Inside the garage it is a different century: the door lifts with two fingers, holds at any height, and for the first time since we bought the house I do not listen to it decide whether to close.
Our original burned with the garage in 1998. Meridian & Locke rebuilt it from the neighbor’s surviving twin and a tax photograph, in the same fir, to the same proportions — and labelled the bottom rail with their names and the date, so nobody in 2098 mistakes it for the original. That last detail is why we chose them.
I am the district’s conservation officer, which means I have spent thirty years reading other people’s restorations and flinching at most of them. The coach house at Pemberton Lea came before me as a full restoration: joints re-glued rather than replaced, the lost panels matched from documented salvage, the hardware re-forged to the surviving pattern — and every intervention marked and recorded, so the next officer can read the door like a book. The torsion springs are rated in cycles the joiners can recite from memory.
The house call reads the door and writes the odds · (555) 028-5561 · workshop@meridianlocke.example · salvage yard on Oldstone Row, Saturdays 9 to 1
Book the house call
A photograph of the door and the rough age of the house is enough to start. The call itself is ninety minutes at your opening, written up honestly, with the odds attached — credited against any bench work you commission. workshop@meridianlocke.example