Icehouse Mechanical Room Door

I return often to stories of adaptive reuse, architectural salvage, repurposing, and upcycling. Today’s foray into the fabrication and installation of the icehouse mechanical room door is physically and thematically adjacent to the bathroom entry door with its own adaptive reuse backstory (circa 2006/7) rooted in the earliest months of Rosslyn’s historic rehabilitation.

For such a small scope of work, the icehouse rehabilitation has included some remarkably creative one-offs. The garapa door is one such project: a challenging initiative to upcycle reclaimed garapa decking from Rosslyn’s house deck into a minimalist mechanical room door perfectly camouflaged into tbe bathroom walls. (Source: Garapa Door)

I’ve touched on this door in previous posts — sometimes specifically and sometimes obliquely — so I’ll sidestep a postmortem play-by-play in favor of a scrapbook photo essay. Let’s start with a followup with the team in early winter 2023.

We discussed adaptive reuse of an existing door (ie. architectural salvage) for the door from the entrance/coffee bar area into the bathroom. I would like to finalize that decision ASAP, select our best suited door, and begin repurposing.

We also discussed fabricating a door (from scratch) into the mechanical room that would upcycle some of the repurposed garapa decking material that Tony has been re-milling. I envision a minimalist door that dissolves into the walls, echoing the horizontal lines of the paneling. I can create a quick sketch to fast-track collaboration and then determine whether or not you can build it yourselves.

It’s time to start bouncing around a little bit…

The photograph at the top of this post shows the early fabrication phase, as the icehouse mechanical room door first began to take shape. But this preliminary snapshot is best paired with another series of flashbacks about the repurposed garapa.

Our garapa backstory has its beginning waaayyy back when we built the original garapa deck on the west side of Rosslyn’s ell.

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Fast forward a couple of years, and the triumph began to tarnish. (Source: Garapa Paneled Bathroom, Pt. 1)

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Long story short, the original deck failed. Not the garapa decking which performed admirably year-after-year. But the substructure… experienced premature decay and rot of the structural lumber… (Source: Deck Rebuild)

Eric Crowningshield’s team deconstructed much of the deck during the late spring of 2022… The deconstructed garapa was separated from the structural demolition debris, the highest grade (ergo most salvageable) material was graded, and the best preserved and most character-rich garapa was stored for repurposing in the icehouse rehab project. Then began a lengthy, painstaking upcycling journey. (Source: Garapa Paneled Bathroom, Pt. 1)

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Upcycling Rosslyn’s deconstructed garapa decking into interior paneling has occupied many members of the icehouse rehab team for months. It’s been a challenge. Every. Single. Step. From demo’ing the old deck (while painstakingly deconstructing, selecting, and grading the most reusable and aesthetically pleasing garapa) to troubleshooting, iterating, and finally re-fabricating the decrepit, timeworn decking into elegant interior finish material, this upcycling endeavor has been an epic quest. And the exacting preparation demanded even more exacting installation. (Source: Garapa Paneled Bathroom, Pt. 2)

As I mentioned above, the vision for the icehouse mechanical room door was to almost camouflage it into the paneled wall. Precisely matched and aligned material offset subtly with double picture frame (for doorway trim and door trim).

Dramatic lighting sure brings the oiled garapa to life! Amber grained, horizontal continuity, just barely framed, an intriguing section of the wall that will allow discrete access to the mechanicals. Polished nickel hinges and passage set, but nominal attention drawing exception to the otherwise seamless expanse of repurposed garapa. (Source: Garapa Door)

What began as a “quest to reinvent debris as functional design-decor” evolved into so many features during the icehouse rehab. The upcycled garapa door occupies a much higher perch in the pride pecking order than one might typically associate with a mechanical room door.

And yet an embarrassingly dated (July 1, 2023!) promise to “update with a photo once the rest of the hardware is installed” is only now appearing.

I snapped that photograph this morning. Worth waiting for? I hope so.

To Tony, Eric, and Peter, thank you. What a journey. What a collaboration. What a spectacular bathroom!