All about Doors.....

One of the interesting things about life here at Chez Vel-DuRay is that we have a slight slant to the east. At one point in the past, one of our frequent earthquakes (we think it was 1965) made the front of the house sag slightly, and caused the foundation to crack in several locations. The good thing about that is that is seems to have settled itself - in the last big earthquake, the only thing that happened to this house was a TV fell over, while the people next door had their front porch separate and their chimney fall off. The bad news is that the front door took that 1965 earthquake rather badly and is pretty much stuck in the closed position.

While the previous owners accepted this as their fate and just didn't use the door, us Vel-DuRays are a proactive bunch, and have decided to replace the whole kit 'n kaboodle.

We looked at the home improvement stores but, as usual, the pickings were slim for the tastefully minded. I don't know what they are teaching in the design schools these days, but they need to knock it off. Not all of us want to surround ourselves with shoddy products whos inspiration was evidentially a third-rate tijuanna bordello. As we looked at door after door full of Kraftsman "details" and Kountry "charm", we became more and more depressed, and by the time we hit on the Victorian section I nearly had to be carried out of the store (Your coorospondent was raised in a place that is packed with Victorian "charm" - you can't turn around there without being confronted by some hideous old structure that should have been bulldozed in 1920 or so. As such, he is very sensitive to this "look" and the mere sight of secular stained glass can put him over the edge). As a palliative measure, the Colonel decided that we needed to go to Second Use Building Materials - a lovely store here in Seattle that sells stuff salvaged from what are doubtless appalling remodel jobs.

There we found a nice HEAVY wooden door with four vertical windows with lovely beveled edges and not a leaded glass flower, heart, or other quaintsy design in site - and the whole thing, including the frame - was only $45!!! You can guess what got loaded into the Volvo that day!

Sure, it needs to have the paint stripped off the inside side (which is white exterior latex), and painted over on the outside side (which is an appalling country blue-ish shade) but that's a day's work for the Colonel. The tricky part will be finding a carpenter who can competently deal with installing a new door in that somewhat skewed opening. But Rome, as they say, was not built in a day.

We also saw a DARLING medicine cabinet that we are going to have to go back and nab today, but more on that later. Anyway, without further ado, here is the new door. A diamond in the rough for sure, but still a diamond.