Tag: doors

Waiting For An Opening

The newly framed closet upstairs.

Hey. I’m so sorry. I’ve been neglectful in the telling of my remodeling story. Instead I’ve been staying in the office late, coming home to make amazingly delicious dinners in my camping kitchen and splitting bottles of wine with The Spouse. Oh, and every day, on the way home, I’m scoping out the progress. Of which there has been much.

So, mostly, I’ve been getting drunk.

That’s the first step in the program. Admitting it.

Truth be told, I’ve been a little bit bent since Labor Day. See, I was super pumped because the windows and doors were scheduled for delivery the Friday before the holiday. I was especially super excited about my new front door.

When your house is 102 years old, things have happened. Like there was evidence of gas light fixtures from before electricity. There were the tracks from the pocket doors that were removed some time back. There was also the ugly wall paper that covered up the damaged hallway plaster that was itself hidden by cheap, dark brown paneling.

There were the evenly placed holes in the walls where an ecologically minded prior homeowner sprayed in a shit-ton of cellulose insulation. I know that it was a shit-ton’s worth based upon the comments of the demolition crew that carried bag upon bag upon bag to the dumpster. While they don’t curse in front of me, I know they were thinking of short, perhaps four-letter, words based on their rated-G expressions at the volume of fluff.

Our red door with the heavy door knocker and a small slice of window at the tip top wasn’t original. Sure, it was old. Yes, it was cracked. But it wasn’t part of the starter package.

Nope. At some point the original door was replaced. But the doorway wasn’t “standard.”  It was extra-wide, by about eight inches. An impressive size. A welcome portal to embrace even Hagrid. Larry, Curly and Moe could all walk in at the same time without any bonks.

Somebody preferred a “standard” sized door and added some wood framing to close in the doorway. They were able to accommodate a “standard” door. It looked fine, but I knew that the door had been majestic. I longed for that big door.

I’ve been pretty careful (cheap) about unnecessary features, but the wide swing of a new door was intoxicating. Talk about curb appeal. We made the call to re-rightsize the entry.

I could barely wait. I’ve been tracking the door and window install dates on the project calendar for weeks. We went on vacation and I thought, “The door will be installed in two weeks.” We got back and I told The Big Guy that we were installing the new door during his birthday week. That was two weeks ago. The newest delivery date was today.

No windows today. No big door. Sure, I know it will happen. The Spouse reminds me that it will happen, but I want my new door. Now.

It’s not like work has halted, mind you. Lots of stuff is happening.

Like, today, the air conditioner was delivered and installed. The duct-work was snaked through the rafters a few weeks ago. The returns placed in each room all the better to cool our jets. The filter and blower was positioned in under the rafters at that same time.

Here's our new, energy efficient heat pump. Someone is very very impressed by the energy ratings.I had no idea how HUGE the actual heat pump would be! It’s a monster. The fan looks like it would cool a factory. This is also the first central air I’ve ever had (except for those eight months I lived at that weird place in Silver Spring). It’s also the first time in our married life that we won’t have window air units. It’s going to be so quiet, I probably won’t be able to sleep.

Tonight I won’t sleep because the windows and doors are supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I’m shaking my head as I’m typing this. Patience isn’t my thing. But just you wait until you see my new door. Because waiting is what we’re doing.

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CatchUp

Guy packing a box in front of empty bookcases.

So, like these last couple of weeks have been full of whack. We were backed up against an immutable deadline–demolition. So we moved a generation’s worth of life out of the space it had occupied.

I fully recognize that I’m making a big deal of what others just manage without comment. But, I’m here to say those folks are just withholding. They might be outwardly strong, but this shit is real.

It’s not like packing up all of your worldly possessions accrued over a middle-aged lifetime is insignificant. But you’re correct in your impulse to say, “Doc, shut up. It’s just life. And you’re getting what you want, you ingrate.”

Okay. Thanks for the reminder and for your chastisement. I earned it.

But now here I am with so much that I haven’t told you. Not for lack of thinking about you. Not for lack of sentences that I strung together in my head without any tether. It’s that I’ve lacked the mental space to write. Since I’m a bit behind, I’m just gonna share some pictures. And some captions. Just to catch you up.

Above is a sampling of old crappy furniture that you can’t even give away. Except that there are always takers. I might have had to post online more than once, and there may still be some crappy junk furniture yet to find it’s forever home, but I can always put it out on the curb and send an alert to the listserve. Crossing fingers that someone doesn’t try and have me cited for illegal dumping. If all else fails, there’s a dumpster on the way.

Warning sign that there is an impending dumpster. And there's some wild marigolds.

There was the day that I came home to find a pair of candy corn cones marking the spot that the dumpster will sit. It says that we have the permit until mid-November. That coincides with the hopeful move in date of, “before Thanksgiving.” Also, check out those wild marigolds that are growing from a crack in the street. I hope they survive the ordeal.

IMG_0541

Truly a ridiculous amount of boxes. At one point I just started throwing items in and marking the boxes rando.

green yellow and orange dot stickers

Now this, this was a piece of my genius. There were some items to go to our interim abode, some things–mostly furniture–to be stored in the garage, and others to go in the basement. I color coded everything. It was brilliant. The movers thought it was brilliant. I had to mark some of the crappy furniture with duct-tape and a handwritten “NO,” to keep the flow going. That helped kill the questions that slowed things down. I paid the guys by the hour, not the pound.

The moving truck, in front of my house.

This is the moving truck. That is all.

The emptied wall.

We painted the dining room walls this amazing terra cotta twenty-some years ago. I wanted to capture the color, and the nail that steadied the sconce for four candles. You can see where the sconce hit the wall. I saved the sconce. I don’t know if it will go back there.

Two red mugs and a coffee setup.

We left the coffee rig at the house when we moved. It was the last thing to pack. We moved the bed, and that meant no coffee. Since the interim abode is only one and a half blocks away, I figured I’d walk over there and make coffee.  But guess what? The Spouse went and got it. So I woke up to fresh coffee. This was the best morning.  I married well.

Yellow tomatoes, parsley, bread and cava.

There was much eating out around the move. This was the first dinner I made in the interim abode. It was rice with minted peas and sweet, salty and sour chicken thighs. Oh, and, obvs, some bubbles. Celebratory and what not.

The Beast, chilling.

The Beast was a little worse for the wear during the move. But he found a chill spot on the floor at the interim abode. He kept an eye on everything because even though the movers came last Wednesday, we didn’t actually finish moving out until yesterday. Yes, a full week later.

It was at a point–or perhaps a few points that I may have made in a borderline hysterical tone–that I didn’t think we’d ever finish. But that’s what happens when you move. You lose your mind over the fact that you seemed to be almost done and then you weren’t. And you cycle through that again and again until you realize that the contractors are coming tomorrow. And then, it’s done. And there are things on the porch that will be picked up by Purple Heart and stuff that the person from the next neighborhood over claims to want and then the stuff that the city will take. I love the city for that.

The front door with all the signs of construction.

And today, the front door was adorned with the signs of construction. Warning labels. EPA certifications–required in a house as old as ours–permits, and the posting of the nuisance fee that we pay the city because…dumpster. Just for the record, my neighbors don’t get any of that nuisance fee.

As I walked through the empty, echoing rooms, I didn’t know what to feel. I thought that I should feel a big emotion, yet I barely even registered relief.

So I found a random pink ribbon during my clean out and decided it would look perfect next to the random green ribbon that has been hanging from our door knocker for more than a year. The house is still ours. I’m feeling good.

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On Deck

Samples of Trek deck. Four shades, mostly blue gray.

We went window shopping. Literally. I fussed at the wooden window in its wooden frame. I flipped the catch back and forth and then back and forth again–maybe as many as fifteen times. The people behind me were amused.

“Are you trying to break it?” said the members of my team.

I turned my head toward them after another back and forth of the catch, “Yes.”

We looked at other windows and, while terrifically energy efficient and quite nice, they weren’t the ones. I didn’t try to break them. Wasn’t worth the effort since a quick look verified that I wanted the other.

The Spouse turned to the doors. Our window store was also our door store. That’s convenient. Turned out that I had selected a door online. I know this because the architect who had accompanied us to the showroom and was among those who I had amused with my attempt to foil the window told me that I did.

“Nooooooooo!” said I. “I didn’t choosed anything. I thought I selected a type of door and that I would get some options later.” I want a bigger window, and, anyway, the panels didn’t speak to me. I was mollified when my misinterpretation was reinterpreted. A quote on a door with more charm and more glass is forthcoming. Crossing fingers that the option on the extra wide door isn’t a budget buster.

Then there are the things that we are choosing that I never thought that I’d select. Things that I have absolutely no real opinion on. That is, no opinion until I have to make a choice.

Like the front and back porch. I never selected these before. There was a porch and a back deck when we bought the house. When we painted the porch, we stuck to gray.  And the back ambiently weathered to the color of old rope–more brown than gray with a dusty hue.

But new decking can last forever. Without paint. Without splinters. And now I have to choose. Our window and door store turns out to also be our decking store.

Who knew there were like twenty different choices–all of them narrowly grouped into two colors? Brownish and grayish. The browns ranged from sandy brown to a reddish brown. The gray from booger-snot to blue gray. It was easy to disregard the snot. But I still had nineteen to choose from!

To make things simple, I thought I’d just go with what we had, since it was fine. I took some samples home and placed them on the back deck and found one that worked. Then we sat on the front porch, rocking on our old people rockers, sipping cocktails and looking at the non-snot gray choices. I liked the one that was the most finished, that looked like painted wood. My logic was that the front porch shouldn’t look like a tree house.

Wait, so should the back of the house look like a tree house? Or should it be finished, too. I had been thinking that I wanted it more natural in the backyard. More like the trees and the grass. But was that because that was what I knew?

Blast! I was caught in the familiarity heuristic.

When the familiar is favored over novel places, people, things. The familiarity heuristic can be applied to various situations that individuals experience in day to day life. When these situations appear similar to previous situations, especially if the individuals are experiencing a high cognitive load, they may regress back to the state of mind in which they have felt or behaved before.– NLP Notes

The plan was for white deck railings to match the trim on the house, so why did I want to have an unfinished deck? Because that’s what I had. So it must be right. Except rocking with a cocktail shook up that cognitive bias.

And, really, did I spend all this time thinking about the deck? I truly did not know that I cared. Having a choice makes all the difference.

Pebble gray it is.

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Windows and Opportunity

East wall of the house with the big windows in the dining room, the bay at the living room and the picture window on the front.

Our neighbors, on the next block, had their door removed. They had gone to work, and at 10 a.m., the cleaning lady came by to find the door with jam meticulously disengaged from the threshold and leaned against the brick wall, leaving a gaping entry. When they replaced that door–after reconstituting a bunch of laptops, TVs and a clarinet–they installed an insanely heavy duty door that would require an army of super Orcs to remove. It’s an illegal door in NYC.

This makes me feel incredibly lucky that nobody has kicked in our borderline decrepit front door, the lower-middle third punctuated by a fault line. Maybe the luck was boosted by a wild animal howling and snarling in a vicious baritone on the other side of the door. Nobody said The Beast didn’t do his job well.

Today we got to pick out door knobs and locks for a new door. Compared to our current non-descript brass pulls, the new rig is positively sexy. The door wasn’t in the original scope, but we really needed it.

The windows weren’t on my list either.

Actually I like these old windows. Almost all of them open, and almost as many stay open on their own. There are screens and storms for the hot and the cold. They are a little heavy and make a squeaky woosh sound on open and close. Sometimes I need to get leverage from above–like standing on a chair to push it closed. But only sometimes. And only on two or three of them. There are lots of windows. Oh, and did I tell you that none are standard sizes. Glorious. Custom windows. 

The Spouse was hot for new windows, though. I think it’s the Eagle Scout in him. You know. Camping and loving the earth and recycling and being energy smart. His Christmas is Earth Day.

I’m less jazzed. Camping to me is staying in a hotel without a closet door. You know, just hangers in a nook? And thin towels. 

New windows are so tight. They squeal versus swoosh. You work them along their hermetic guides to vacuum into an airless seal. They lock steadfastly in place with little plastic doodads. Keeps out the cold. Keeps out the heat. I get that that makes sense.

I’m not against energy efficiency, but I will NOT see these windows pay for themselves. Perhaps that’s not the point. The ancient siding is coming down. The outside of the windows are an unholy mess. New windows simply make sense. I can be good with that. 

[And mark this well, Loyal Reader. This is how scope creep happens, not with a bang but via the inevitable whisper of air held at bay by glass.]

Next, I need to learn about windows to make a choice. They have “features,” and not just finishes. You can tilt them so you can clean them. (I don’t do windows.) There are e-value and u-value. Casings. Sashes. Glazes. Rails. Latches. Layers.

I can have wooden windows. And I’m making an investment for decades. And, mostly, The Spouse will be so happy with them.

The design-build team is recommending different window vendors for the basement versus the upstairs. I’m ready to learn why at my Spring term accelerated Intro To Windows 101. I’ll let you know if anything is interesting.

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Green Screen

A wall lined with bookshelves, filled with many books and more whatnot.

I’m looking at the bookshelves lining the wall in the den. They are tall. They span from door jam to radiator, filling in all the usable space. They were an attempt to provide a library feel. I’m not sure we got there, but it definitely evokes that storage room feel. 

Where I’m looking right now will be a set of French doors, opening to the hallway. The doorway will be twin to the archway leading to the living room. So where this wall, stacked with a book buffer, currently stands will be a set of doors. I bet they end up with eight or fifteen little glass panels. We will be able to easily see from room to room. 

I really can’t quite see it now, though. I’m trying. Hard. I guess we’re in the imagination stage of the remodel. Where we make decisions based on ideas that seem good translated into line drawings. I feel like I’m acting with a green screen–I can’t actually see what it looks like, but I have to react. 

I’m spending time in the bathroom washing my hands where the appliance garage will be and leaning up against the wall oven. I have to move the back door over three or four feet and squint to see the new windows. My mind wanders to spatial relations. Will the dog food bin fit in the island cabinet? Do I want it there? Do dishes go in one of the roll out drawers? And what about the paper towels? They need to be accessible, but where?

I walk back and forth where the new bathrooms will be, thinking about lighting and the staging of towels and bandaids. I stand just outside where the new doors will be and mime opening and closing them. 

To get some perspective, my eyes dart between the drawings of the windows and the actual windows. I align my body with the frame and turn myself to the left to see how much wall space we’ll have. I think I sometimes open doors here, too. 

Once or twice, at night, I’ve had dream tours. These tours are always fantastical and absolutely wrong. My brain adds extra floors and maybe a slide. The rooms are not like the rooms in the drawings. Once there was a pool outside the kitchen door. I don’t want a pool. The colors are wrong, too. My sleeping house is viewed through hazy filters, like the old fashioned ones in Instagram.  There’s too much yellow, or it’s way too rosy. 

The next morning I wake up and pull the plans up on my phone, and walk through the rooms as they’ll be–hanging towels, pulling deodorant from the medicine cabinet, stepping into the imaginary walk-in closet. I hope that they don’t put any toothy CGI monsters in when we get to post-production.  

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