Open a New Door

I wonder what is the most important part of a room? When the framing was complete, I could get a great sense of the new rooms and when the walls were built I could see the scope of the rooms. The windows were installed and the rooms seemed pretty much complete. Now today I realized what it is that makes a room feel like a place to live in - it's the doors I think.

There's a feeling of intimacy when you can close a door and keep the living spaces separated. When I came home today, all the doors had been installed and each room now had a complete footprint. I opened a door and looked into the new hallway closet; through another door I could see the spare bedroom. Best of all, I opened another door and there was my beautiful new bedroom. Do you remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy stepped out of her house through the door and saw a world of color? That's what it felt like to me this afternoon. I stepped through the door and saw a room that just two and a half months ago did not even exist.

The doors themselves are about 70years old. Tom stripped them of their paint, sanded them to a smooth finish, and hung them in place. They're multicolored right now because the wood has gone through so many years of use, being painted, sanded, stained, repainted, and on and on. Soon they'll be a nice shiny white and I'll be able to leave them open to share the room or close them to keep things cosy. Either way, the new doors have given these rooms a feeling of life. As the remodeling process draws nearer to its end, these doors make me feel as if things in our home are just beginning.