We did not have a door on our bathroom for four years until this past weekend. We did have a curtain. A heavy curtain, nearly as old as me, that my grandmother used to cover the doorway going from her bedroom to the laundry room/third bedroom. Our motto was if the curtain is down, turn around!
In November 2021 we took the bathroom door down to use with some other old doors to make a wall in that laundry room/bedroom creating a separate area for the washer, dryer and deep freezer, complete with loft area for storage, and making the remainder a large closet/dressing room.
Our house is really old, and, like most houses of old, was built without closets. Storage was in wardrobes and chifferobes, and the like. Or, I suppose, my ancestors may have only had one change of clothing and needed no place to hang their clothes. We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that we have a closet now, and didn’t when we moved in. My grandmother did have a freestanding closet in one corner of her bedroom that had to go when we moved into that room.
I had already purchased an old office door, with a frosted glass window, that came out of an office suite in a now-gone building in Newton for the bathroom. That purchase was several years prior to the taking down of the bathroom door, but it was a different size and couldn’t be put up right away. I knew that when I bought it, and knew I would have to rebuild the door facing to fit the narrower width of the office door.
Then football season rolled around, then the holidays, then it was too cold, and then it was too hot, and my mother had died, and my father needed more attention, and then he died, and excuse, after excuse, after excuse.
All of the sudden four years had gone by, and whenever the curtain was down, we just turned around. If we had company, which was seldom, they were informed of the motto from the get go...or the got to go, I guess!
Finally, last week, we decided it was time to get moving on that door, as well as new flooring in the bathroom, new wallboard on one wall, and a new vanity.
It’s a tiny little room that some of my people created long ago in an effort to move the facilities from the outside to the inside. They did it by moving a wall in the large dining room. Sort of a shotgun bathroom I suppose one could say. It is barely big enough for two people to work in with the ancient hot water heater located in there as well.
I felt certain it would not take long to put the flooring down, and wallboard up, and get the door facing done Saturday, and finish up the trim Sunday afternoon. What I didn’t realize is that since we took that door down to use in that wall of doors in the dressing room four years ago, something bad happened and we got old.
Really old!
I grunted and moaned, and grunted and moaned some more, and got up and down, and down and up, over and over again until my getter upper downer was running basically on fumes.
That was not a good sign. But it was a sign to stop for the day before the floor was finished, and before the door was up. The curtain was already down and packed away, so the curtain had to get unpacked and put back up for that curtain is down, turn around, business. And then it was time for bed.
Needless to say, Sunday did involve a bit more than trim work, and that door was much heaver than I remembered, and there was a good bit more getting up and down, grunting and moaning, and, well, you get the picture.
Before you visualize it completely, though, I should throw in the fact that there are four steps up to the front porch and four steps back down to the ground and the saw and saw horses were in the front yard. I’m sure that speaks for itself.
Sunday’s work was easier, except for the fact that the top of my legs were really sore and the four steps might as well have been 40, or so it seemed.
By dark, the curtain was folded and packed away again, the door was swinging open and closed and no motto was needed since a closed door speaks for itself.
As with anything ever done in a 150 year old, or so, home there would have to be one more hitch and this time it was that the water lines on the new faucet are not as long as the water lines on the old faucet so at this writing we are brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink. At least it still works fine. Knock on wood.
Having discovered our elderly status, Sunday evening while enjoying a glass of wine on the front porch and marveling over our craftsmanship, wife, Danny, and I decided that we have sworn off DIY projects of this nature for the rest of our lives, which on Monday morning didn’t feel like would be very long at all.
Sworn off, that is, right after we put the new flooring down in our bedroom at the other house. We’ve had that flooring for four years too!!!
Some folks are just gluttons for punishment, and I know two.
Procrastinators? Hmm, I don’t know, yes, no, maybe.
Danny, however, did claim on Tuesday morning that she might have the jet lag!
