Saturday, January 19, 2008

Today, I hung french doors.

In a midtown home. Built in 1920. Ask me, go ahead, ask me if any of the frame was square. HELL NO. Took me all damn day to do it. I know, I know, I should have just gotten prehung doors and put them in but that's wasteful considering I had old doors in the garage. And I just couldn't do it because on one side of the opening we have been tracking the boys' height since they were old enough to stand on their own. There's history on that door frame and I couldn't cover it. I couldn't forget it that easily. I couldn't just throw it away so I decided to work around it. Took me longer and caused me to cuss.......a LOT.......but I saved that history.

I also learned to work around the imperfections. Takes time and ingenuity but it's worth it. I had to cut part off the tops and the bottoms of both doors. I had to cut some off the sides then use a hand plane to finesse it into place. They're hung. They work like they should. They're not perfect yet but that's OK. I'm more about function than flash.

I cut. I sanded. I planed. I filed. I cussed. I swallowed sawdust and tracked wood shavings all over house. Even my son hollered at me for making a mess in the house. Freak. I reset the threshold and now all that's left is putting the hardware on. If this house has taught me anything it's taught me that something is going to go wrong or need to be repaired and that with some patience and research I can fix just about everything.

Except where I work. What a fubar. That may be a project I don't have the talent to take on. Or maybe I do. We'll see.