Removing doors and patching holes

We have two doorways that lead to the back hallway and bedrooms: one from the living room and one from the kitchen. Only one of them had a door actually hanging from the hinges. Even if we had doors on both, we'd never use them. We just don't have the same sense of propriety that they did in 1938 when they built my house. Realizing that we never close the door off the living room, I asked Greg if he'd care if I just got rid of it. He responded that he'd never been sure why I hadn't removed it already.

But that means we had this situation going on when I removed the hinges. Sorry about the bad photography--this hallway gets zero light.

Bad pictures, ahoy!

My friend Sarah told me about using those free paint stirrer sticks to patch these holes. They fit perfectly.

You just trim them to fit (we used craft scissors), attach them with finishing nails (drill a pilot hole or the wood will split), hit them with some wood putty, sand them, prime them, and paint them.

It's like there was never a door here!

Oh wait, except for on the other side. We haven't figured out the best way to patch this hole yet. It's too shallow to accommodate a paint stick. So we could chisel out a deeper hole or try to find a thinner piece of wood to patch it. We'll probably go with the latter.

In case anybody is worried, we are keeping the door we removed in storage. Future owners may want to be able to close off areas of the house and you don't give away original solid-wood doors.