Doors week

Manu attacking the back door shed

A bonus from the shed: old boards that will be repurposed elsewhere in the house

RIP the shed

The brick having been sawed, the left opening is ready for the door frame

PF and Louis looking rather biblical while they install the first frame

The first door is in! View from the backyard

So much light

They're in!

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.

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The patio doors

The inspiration, minus the chandelier

We finally ordered the two sets of french doors that will lead to the back yard. God, for the time it took us to reach our decision one would think that we were redesigning the Taj Mahal. It would be but a slight exaggeration to say that pretty much every window manufacturer in the city had the dubious honor of bidding on the Tall House's rear portals. Modern doors, classic doors, wood doors, aluminum doors, doors with transoms, doors without, black doors, white doors, name it, we have a quote for it.

Now we pride ourselves on (pretty much) knowing what we want. But in this case it took us forever to figure it out. It's funny how one can spend years imagining a space, obsessing about it even, and still hesitate when it comes time to chose the final materials. It was as if we were conscious that our decision would forever change the Tall House and that we needed to make sure that it would be for the better.

That and of course, money. During one of our many visits to countless showrooms we fell hook, line and sinker for the most beautiful doors we had ever seen. Tall, dark, and exceedingly elegant they had our hearts racing and our mouths watering. French doors in all senses of the word, these beautiful panels of glass and wood seemed to have been taken straight out of a chic Parisian apartment or Provençal villa. They had the capacity to elevate any space and we dearly wanted them in ours. Our quest was over.

Then the quote came back. The doors were a good $5000 more than any of the others we had seen. For a while, we actually considered it. "We could cut else where", we reasoned. "Worse come to worse we would put the $5000 on the line of credit, it would be paid back within a year"... I actually stayed up at night thinking about those doors, worrying about the money. Because I knew all too well that spending that little bit extra now would start a financial hemorrhage that we would no longer be able to keep in check. Those doors would lead to the most expensive heating system, which would lead to the most custom of custom kitchens, which would lead to...

And neither of us has the time to work a second job.

Then something wonderful happened. We went back to the showroom and were shown very much the same doors but in a man made material as opposed to wood. And they were gorgeous. They were also within our budget. Our only sacrifice would be that the doors couldn't be the whole 104 inches high, we would have to have a transom.

So at least now, as we wait for the 12 weeks it takes for the doors to be manufactured, it will be the anticipation that will keep me up at night and not the worry.

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