Update January 3 2011

Happy New Year to all!

We have fabulous friends who are currently remodeling their 1920s house (with a 1990s bad remodel) and they've been kind enough to give us their castoffs as they make their own improvements before they move in. They're homogenizing all their doors (they currently have about 4 different styles, some cheap, some crappy, none consistent) and perfectly, they have the exact number of doors we needed to redo our doors in our hallway. Isn't God good? We needed two 30", one 32", and at least two 24" doors. They had all of them! They also had nice satin-nickel doorknobs and hinges that went with those doors, along with other style hardware that again, wasn't consistent. We didn't have nearly as many doors as they did, so their castoffs are our treasures! FREE doors, hinges and hardware!! Thanks in abundance to our friends!

So without even painting, we suddenly have white doors in the hallway. LOVE that. The first door I replaced was the one to our bedroom. It's at the end of the hall, so would be most noticeable when looking down the long hallway of doom and darkness. I only had to cut a new hinge area in the jamb and then hang the door. Piece of cake! Instant gratification, which, in this house, is extremely hard to come by. And the bonus is now, when you look down the hallway, you don't wonder whether your soul will disappear in the gloom.

The next one was a special treat . . . the door to our bathroom. It had opened one way for 47 years . . . the previous owner, even when enlarging the bathroom, never bothered changing the orientation of the door, so when you opened it up, you had to go completely around it to get to the sink. Weird. It drove Rich particularly crazy. Many a colorful expletive about this "character trait" (remember, character's a bitch) was uttered in a half-asleep stupor trying to get ready for bed.

So while Rich was at work, I took the old door off, mortised out new places for hinges and strikeplates, cut the new door to the correct length, and set the new door. This was a BIG deal for me. I was determined to get it done before he got home, as a present. However, circular saws and I do NOT discuss things together. I tell it that I'm happy with the number of fingers I have; it says that that can be debatable. I don't like losing an argument, so I usually don't initiate. So if a project around here requires a circular saw, Rich gets to do it--he doesn't seem to have the same morbid attachment to his fingers that I do. But this was important, so I swallowed my fear, remembered watching Rich use his big boy saw, and decided to try it with the battery-operated mini 4" blade (don't ask me why a 4" spinning blade of amputation is better than a 7" one . . . this is my logic and I'm sticking with it). I used clamps to hold down a rip fence, measured three times, and cut. The installation looked beautiful, if I may say so myself. It's not perfect--it still needs some adjustment and wood putty on the old holes . . . but dang it, it works! Normally, I'm the nurse to Rich's door surgeon. But I do pay attention. So much like watching my parents do things around the house and then me trying it on my own, by myself, when no one is watching when I screw it up, I tried it and lived to tell the tale.

Rich came home and was ecstatic about it. He smiled and even when I pointed out the negatives/needs-imporovement aspects, he shook his head and said it didn't matter. He was so thrilled it swings the "correct" way now, nothing could have dampened his happiness. Have I said recently how great he is? :o)

So today, I installed the other three doors in the hallway--the office, the guest bedroom, and the guest bath. The linen closet is going to pose a problem . . . they don't make that door in an 18" width unless it's custom ordered. So instead, we may paint it and make it artwork or something. I just can't justify spending $100 on one door, especially when we got such a good price on the others. The others still need a little adjustment here and there, and the old doors used 2 hinges and the new ones should be using 3, and the middle (3rd) one on each door needs to be installed, but we're getting there. Almost all the hardware is in now, too, and it makes SUCH a difference in the hallway! With the new colors on the walls in each bedroom and hall, and white doors with white trim, it actually looks like a different, newer house. It's quite cool, actually.

Tonight, Rich and I are going to work on installing some flooring in the attic, so tomorrow I can finally take down Xmas decorations and actually PUT THEM AWAY . . . a concept that's fairly rare around here, with the lack of good storage.

It's so crazy that we accomplish so much, yet as soon as it's done, I want more. I have cabinets, countertops and working appliances and plumbing, but I want a kitchen floor. I have walls with paint on them, and solid countertops to work with, but I want trim installed everywhere. I have a roof over my head and a large dancehall to pile our stuff in, but I want to build a closet to hide all of our crap . . . it never seems to end. I've heard this is the way life works. And I'm Scarlett O'Hara or Goldilocks.