Every year or so I get that home renovation itch. Sometimes the itch gets scratched with a couple cans of paint, but there are other times when the projects get a little bit away from me.
For example, take our recent home improvement scheme to replace 7 of our interior doors. The ones we had were 30 years old, hollow and banged up quite a bit. I had painted them once, a few years ago, but even that paint job was showing a lot of wear. It was time to replace them.
My husband and I felt equipped for the project. We bought 7 doors—upgraded a bit to paneled doors—and I painted them a semi-glossy white. We planned to take the hinges and knobs from the old doors and put them on the new ones (never mind the adage about new wine in old wineskins), so we thought it would take a couple of days. Oh, how the exalted will be humbled!
Then YouTube videos revealed the need for carving out the spot in the door where the hinge would snugly fit and the convenience of a router, a power tool we now own. Each door had its own challenges—the type of thing we’ve come to expect from an older home that has expanded after various additions and alterations over the years (something the house and I have in common). It took a week but we finally finished. If you come to our house, I beg you to NOT look closely at our carpentry skills, or the lack thereof.
At about the same time, we had new windows installed by PROFESSIONALS. Our utility bills were whispering conspiracy theories about possible leaks and inefficiency, and a few of the windows were damaged, so we swallowed the price tag and spent our money the boring, adult way.
All in all, both projects have turned out great and, hopefully, improved this home we love. You don’t realize what a difference replacing something mundane like windows and doors can make until you do it. But these components of most every house are actually very important.
A door gives you privacy. A window gives you a view.
A door shuts others out. A window lets sunlight in.
A life with all unlocked doors would be easy but unchallenging.
A life with doors and windows requires a person to decide when to walk away and when to weigh the risks and decide to jump.
Or as Maria says in The Sound of Music, “When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.”
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