Hacked Off

Back to the decorating / restoration work, it being a rare weekend without guests (oddly, next week is a rare midweek with guests).

Having stripped, scraped and scoured the multiple layers of paint off the door lock of the room I'm decorating, it become clear that at some point someone took a hacksaw to the privacy bolt.

Why on Earth they did that to this hand-crafted Victorian (if not Georgian) mechanism rather than undo 3 screws and simply detach it internally, is beyond me, but has become an expectation of past owner's approach to maintenance of this place.  It must have taken far more effort to cut; it's a non-trivial piece of metal.

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'Before' view in the extra.