Most of us, I suspect, seldom think about them at all – they’re just there, open-or-shut as we move on to something else or perhaps seek some privacy. Oh, sometimes they stick or squeak or the knob needs tightening, but for the most part we rarely even see them. As for simply walking into one, BLAM! Sometimes it’s not a joke or only a black eye.
As perspective, when our renovation project began, I was occupying a bedroom that had no door. Ours is an old house, after all, and the back parlor, as we also call the room, sat off the kitchen and our tiny bathroom. At least the bathroom had a door, though it didn’t close fully. As a matter of fact, few of the indoor doors in our house closed fully and the exterior ones were equally suspect.
Adam, our amazing contractor, raised another question about which way each of our upcoming doors would open. I assumed, erroneously, that they would be situated to minimize obstruction of open space. Instead, it seems that doors conventionally open with the right hand. Not the left. From either side, at that. Try it and let me know if I’m wrong.
The discussion thickened, no pun intended, when one of the coconspirators in this renovation declared she wouldn’t have hollow-core doors in the house, not even the bedrooms. My leaning for two of the upstairs bedrooms had been for Japanese-style curtains and for leaving the laundry room open. But then considerations of noise, privacy, and smoke-and-fire emergencies overruled me. A bathroom, of course, needs a solid closure, period. Would ours upstairs have a frosted window, like the one downstairs? As you see, this can get complicated. Those popular flip-this house cable TV programs are so lacking.
But back to topic.
The other coconspirator proposed picking up antique doors salvaged from other renovation projects, and we decided to go that route. They didn’t even have to match, did they?
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Still ahead was what to do with the two exterior doors downstairs.
They were leaky, as far as bad weather went, warped, and rotting. The front door presents a neighborhood impression as well as the challenge of upholding the town’s historical character. Its storm door had already fallen away, due to frame warping.
To see some examples of exterior doors of Eastport homes, take a look at the Doors Fit for a Cape photo album at Thistle Finch editions.
A Penobscot Bay windjammer cruise typically includes a lobster bake, though technically the crustaceans are boiled or steamed with corn on the cob. The event takes place on any of a number of uninhabited islands along the way.
Jnana's Red Barn 