There once was a bar
Named O’Reilly, St Louis
Their door is now mine

There’s a bar in St Louis named M.P O’Reilly’s. It was large, it was cheap, and it was in the Central West End (before they moved down to Manchester). The old spot had a lot of memories for the restaurant crew in the neighborhood, and a lot of my friends worked there at times. Currently, the old location is being gutted for a chain bar and grill named Bar Louie to come in.

See, when I moved into my current apartment it was great: Four times the size of my previous studio, lots of big windows, and a kitchen with working appliances. There was one very strange drawback, however… I didn’t have a bathroom door. No one knew where the door had gone, but I lived alone and it wasn’t high on my priority list. I hung up a curtain for any guests that might call and marked it done

Luckily for my bathroom, the Bar Louis crews ripped out and discarded the M.P. O’Reilly’s mens room door, and I pulled a 3AM ninja raid to liberate it from their dumpster. This is a solid core door that’s been lovingly abused. The heavy brass handles and kickplates look like they’re a hundred years old from all the undergrad students beating them over the last fifteen years.

The door had an automatic closer stuck to the back of it, and I decided to go ahead and install that in my bathroom as well. Since my doorway was 28″, and this door was 31″ I decided to side hang it with the closer to keep it held flush. The door feels more like a display piece, or a monument, hung outside of the frame. I’m actually thinking of it as more of a floating section of wall.

I don’t know how most people feel about architectural salvage, but I think that the history in the piece makes it just that much cooler.