The basement is not an easy place to get to. There is a heavy piece of decking that needs to be lifted out; there are no hinges so you have to be strong.
Then you crawl through the hole in the deck and go down some old, spiderwebby concrete steps.
At the bottom of the steps, you encounter this warning:
Someone was certainly concerned about "exsplosive" now weren't they. (There aren't really any down there, but let's keep that to ourselves, shall we?)
Through the foreboding door is a treasure trove! If you can get over the spider webs, dust, and thoughts of black widows lurking, you'll see what we saw: possibility in the form of gorgeous old doors.
Two of these doors are from the original bunkhouses on the ranch. Who knows how long they have been in storage, at least since the 60's or 70's I would guess. They are heavy and solid and beautiful, and just perfect for our needs. I am guessing they were on the ranch when it was purchased by Number One's grandfather, and thus when Number One's father came down to run the place and fell in love with it. And the rest is history.
I asked Number One to haul them out into the light, for further inspection and measuring.
I think one of the reasons this remodel seems so painless, despite our modest budget, is that Number One and I are flexible. We are not chained to any one idea. We are open to anything, as long as it will look good. We are not set on there being One Perfect Anything at all. There is no bickering, no disagreement, only open discussion and lots of new ideas being tossed around.
I will admit, this light fixture from Pottery Barn would look amazing in our dining room, but it would also take up almost 1/2 of our entire lighting budget. With several other rooms to outfit in lights, this is just not feasible. But I'm okay with that. We have these super cool doors, and we also scoured the internet for hours and days on end and found a great dining room light fixture for less than half of the Pottery Barn one! (wait until you see it!)
This is what I'm talking about: being flexible allows you to see the possibility instead of the disappointment. Sticking to your budget (and trying to come in under it) IS possible, if you are indeed flexible and determined, and okay, tenacious. And you might just end up with some more interesting stories to tell instead of, "oh yes, that's from Pottery Barn."
One of these doors will be the entrance to my closet, a sweet pocket door right off of the bedroom. Did I tell you Number One and I are having separate closets? I can't tell you how excited I am.
The other door, door #6, will find a new home as the pocket door entrance to our new pantry. It will be proudly displayed in the dining room, #6 and all, so there will be no question to guests where the pantry is: behind Door #6, of course!
The other door, with the window, is from one of the original houses on the ranch (or at least one of the oldest ones). I'm not sure how or why the tenants of the home got permission to remove the door from its location in the living room and fill the doorway in with drywall, but at least now we get to use this door in our partially-new home. A previous tenant also drilled a darn hole right through the door for their satellite television cable...so I will have to fill that in.
This door will be the entrance to Number One's closet, in its new life as a pocket door. We are debating using some window vinyl to camouflage the potentially offending contents of the closet from outside view. What I mean to say is, sometimes Number One's got a huge pile of dirty, stinky clothes, and one of the reasons for separate closets is I'm just plain tired of looking at them. So some camouflage may be in order.
I do have some work ahead of me, cleaning and sanding and repainting each of them, but these doors have character and history, and that is all the inspiration I need.
No comments:
Post a Comment