What a week. I worked away stripping the stairs, I cleaned the exposed brick wall (yet again), Manu and I demolished the small shed off the basement back door, we put up a whole wall's worth of gyp rock... but it all faded into the background because this week was the week that the doors were installed!
Having paid a pretty penny for these lovely portes françaises we happily handed the job over to the very capable hands of Pierre. Mister organization himself, Pierre had the mason lined up the day after we took delivery and as an added bonus our two favorites Louis and PF would be doing the job.
We enjoy Louis and PF's company so much that we tend to forget that they are at the Tall House because we pay them. They are so easy to talk too and such a wealth of knowledge that time tends to slip by as we chat away together. It probably doesn't make for very good accounting but it certainly makes the job so much more fun. And as we are surrounded with friends and acquaintances who have all to many many contractor horror stories to tell, we count ourselves very, very lucky.
So it wasn't at all surprising to see how much the guys shared my enthusiasm for the new doors. That Thursday afternoon when I came home and saw the first door installed they were as excited as I was. And I was excited. My voice went up two octaves, I was jumping up and down, I was flushed, and I must have called Manu about six times. The doors looked incredible. They changed the whole space. They changed the whole house! By this time the guys were jumping up and down too with PF pointing out all the marvels of the state of the art hardware and the solid construction. They lock! They open! They swivel! You'd think we'd won the lotto.
Having decided that they'd had enough excitement for one day, and with the winter daylight hours being as limited as they are, PF and Louis cut out early, leaving me alone to contemplate the wondrous new additions. Because they were just that special, I popped open a bottle of wine and poured myself a glass. And there among the sawdust, the power tools, the sheets of gyp rock and the mess I sat in the thrift store chair and I felt like a queen.
And then I couldn't stand it any longer, I called Manu. Just one more time.
