A door, a door, my kingdom for a door

If the eyes are the window to your soul, then the front door must be the big gaping hole to all your frustrations, and when you undertake the task of replacing it, it also becomes the symbol of all your incompetence. Or maybe when I say “you” it’s really only just me.

It was a simple project: pull out the old door and frame, fix any water damaged lumber, slide in the new prehung door and then go to town for an ice cream cone. In and out, two days — tops.

With hot, but stable weather predicted for three days, we tore into the project, removing the door, parts of the wall and a fairly good portion of the subfloor. No problem. Destruction is rarely difficult or complicated at this level. It’s not like I have to set dynamite to collapse a 40-story high-rise in on itself.

Day one of the project was a breeze, and it ended with a satisfied smile and a blanket stapled into place over the doorway for the night. Then the shop cat, who has been very interested in checking out the house this summer, slipped under the blanket, sauntered through the construction zone/disaster area and peeked into the office at me with a look that clearly said, “How is it that your home is a bigger rat hole than the shop?” And then he left. Everybody’s a critic.

I stapled the bottom of the blanket-door shut after that.

Day two, the plan was to whip that subfloor back together, plop a door back into the hole, add the window and handle mechanism and then celebrate with a barbecued steak, some beer and then ice cream — can't forget the ice cream.

We had a mental list of things to do to get ready for the grand door installation ceremony, like cutting and installing braces to be butted up alongside the floor joists for the new subfloor to rest on, braces which I carefully measured and painstaking cut too long the first time, every time.

And even when I wasn’t sabotaging the the to-do plan, we discovered two surprise tasks or needed-customizations for every one item on the to-do list — all helping to slow us down.

Day two ended with me tired, sore, wondering in a whiny way which would be worse, trying to power through my exhaustion to get the door in place or facing coming home from work the next day to spend a third day of labor for the sake of a front door — a thing that was probably overrated anyway. The stapled-in-place blanket was doing just fine — if I ignored the flies.

Day three, day of the door, saw my husband and I, both over-tired, in pain and frustrated with our inability to understand the simple mechanics of shimming a door into place in a cobbled-together rough opening so the door wouldn’t catch at one corner. Everything we tried only made it worse. How can that be?

We snarled and snapped at each other like rabid wild beasts. It was ugly.

But before we threw away the door and settled on using the staple-and-blanket method of front entry forever, we came to one human adult-like rational agreement: The new, far-from-perfect door was actually closing better than the previous door and that, my friends, was good enough for us.

We have pecked away at the “finish” work this week, installing the door’s window and handle, sealing the jamb in place with caulking and spray-in foam insulation and putting in a few more screws so the whole thing, door, jamb and all, didn’t get blown out during the next storm.

I’ll be adding trim and a final coat of paint this weekend — right after I shave down the corner of the door that’s sticking in the not-square corner of the jamb. (Hey, there’s other ways to make a door fit than wasting all that time to “square things up.”)

As I write this, another late-summer thunder storm is winding up for a good blow. Wind and raindrops are pelting the door and window, and I’ve been investigating for leaks. So far, the wind and rain have stayed on the outside of the house where they belong. As has the cat.

It seems to be adequate pay-off for the effort and aggravation — along with the ice cream I eventually got — and I am content to let the storm howl, cuddled into my recliner with the blanket-formerly-known-as-door.

(That’ll do, door. That’ll do at http://viewnorth40.wordpress.com.)