What do you do with door that has a big gouge in it?

A door like this:

Didn’t anyone notice the sound of scraping?

When we bought our house I was quite pleased that it came with some pocket doors. Imagine my surprise the first time I closed the door between the kitchen and dining room and discovered this long gouge. At some point a screw had been drilled a little too far into the wall, resulting in the door getting scratched every time it was opened and closed. Removing the screw would have meant demolishing the kitchen, since it was buried behind old, custom built cabinets. I solved the problem by leaving the door open.

After we had ice damming issues this winter and ended up changing some things in our kitchen since we had to tear out countertops and cupboards anyway, I was more determined to give the door a makeover. First things first, I had to get rid of the screw tip or any work I did would be undone as soon as I opened the door again. This was not easy. The screw tip was hiding inside the pocket door. You could only see it with a flashlight. I bought a little saw then would not fit into the door. I wasn’t able to explain the situation very well to anyone who wasn’t standing next to me, looking at it themselves. When I called my parents and asked for their advice, my dad suggested he could help me out with a torch. That seemed like a bad idea. Eventually after sawing at it forever with a kitchen knife I somehow sliced off the screw tip. I’m sure there was an easier, faster way to go about it, but it worked. Eventually. I bought some wood filler and got down to business.

KwikWood magical putty. Kneed a blob of it, smoosh it into the gouge. It. Smells. Awful. But it works great.

Some more steps along the way:

Sand the gouge and then fill it with putty (below).

Sand, add more putty as needed, repeat several times. Be sure to let putty dry thoroughly each time.

Finally, after lots of sanding I was ready to paint the door. I thought a chalkboard would be handy for writing messages and grocery lists. Here’s the finished product!