The chores and churning of daily life have conspired against moving forward on several of the renovation projects of late.  Or so it seems.  I have found an hour here, a half hour there to start refinishing the interior doors that I sent out for stripping.

When a couple of weeks pass and I haven’t made obvious headway on the project, my intellect starts playing all kinds of tricks, and the little voices start whispering, "you never really were cut out for that project were you."  "Are you lazy, or is it just that you can’t manage your date?"  "That guy down the road started and finished his renovation project in less than half the day you’ve been working on yours." And on and on.

It’s true that my project is taking a lengthy moment, and perhaps I’m not the best day manager, but most of the discouraging thoughts are simply brain noise. 

Even when the physical aspects of the project aren’t progressing, there is often planning taking place.  And when there’s planning, there’s decision making.  A luxury (and sometimes curse) of a do-it-yourself project is that you can planned endlessly on the planning and decisions.

Lately I’ve been trying to decide how the finish the door arrangement of the master bedroom.  Originally the three doors that serve the main entry, bidet closet, and walk-in closet were going to hang on hinges, but there was always a question about the closet door considering there’s not a lot of space amoung the bed and where the door swings open.  Like the one for the upstairs bath, the closet door could

I got the notion that putting the closet door on a slider would solve the problem.  A pocket door would be nice but that wasn’t part of the original planning and would require tearing apart a wall and doing some re-wiring which I’m not interested in doing considering the amount of work I have to do in other areas.  The only place I can reasonably place a slider is on the external of the closet.

Then I got the view that sliding doors across that entire wall might be a nice solution/design.  I like the antique barn door sliders that I see on some buildings and I think that hardware would look great along that wall.  Unfortunately, the space requirements for the flat track and hardware are greater than what I have and the cost is high to boot.

But since that concept set in, I’ve been stuck with it.  I like the concept of the main entry door not opening into the hallway (the only other option) considering that allows for reflected light to flood into the stairwell in the afternoons.  (I’ve discovered that some of these little details manufacture a big difference in daily life. I’m even willing to deal with a little inconvenience here and there to preserve some of the sublime pleasures.)

I’m still working on solving the bedroom doors problem (getting quotes, making sketches), which I can do in the small snatches of duration amidst work and parenting.  So even whether I’m not pounding nails and making sawdust, the work is still progressing.

handyman