Break On Through To the Other Side

Here's an equation that doesn't balance in my favor: cheap, flimsy interior doors—it's high quality merchandise; cardboard is used to provide support between the layers—and a couple of cats whose plaintful bleatings are enough to penetrate even the hardiest earplugs. Trust me, every brand of earplug has been tried and none of them have proven themselves able to attenuate General Zod's early morning laments at his apparent lack of food. Besides, the doors themselves are the kind that Home Depot flogs for the lowest possible price, so along with providing negligible sound insulation they're also as ugly as a boil on an old man's butt.

The Great Organiser, intrepid as she is, stumbled across a salvage yard in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago. It's filled with just about anything that can be wrenched free of a house that some over zealous contractor decided needed to be eviscerated of its original charm, just like the place I live in. Pluck it free of its fixture, mark it an antique, slap on a hefty markup and then set it out to display in the salvage yard. A sucker will be along any minute to eyeball it, decided they're equipped to strip and refinish it in completely unrealistic time frame, and fork over the exorbitant price. On Saturday that sucker was me, with a little help from the Great Organiser.

Exactly why it would take us upwards of four hours to select four doors escapes me at the moment, and I've had two full days to ponder it. With measurements in hand it really ought to be a straightforward task to size up a few likely candidates, confirm the dimensions and plonk down for the purchase. Where in that simple set of procedures is there latitude to blow four hours? It's got me miffed. Perhaps the early switch from Victorian doors to five panel God-knows-what-they're-called doors precipitated our downfall. It was like something ripped from a Kafka novel; staring at long hallways lined with racks of old doors shedding their century-old lead-infused paint—tasty stuff. It drove me slowly nuts. But ultimately we prevailed and with four doors strapped to the top of the car we made our way back across the Bay Bridge, the securing straps humming in the breeze as if to confirm our relief at being done with the ordeal.

But that's not the truth, is it? The ordeal isn't nearly done. Getting the doors was just the first challenge in what is starting to become an Odyssean adventure. There's four of those things sitting outside right now, waiting to have their twelve layers of paint removed. And that's the real trick; they're sporting enough layers of paint—latex, acrylic and sumptuous lead—to warrant an archaeological dig in order to find the wood hidden beneath. The Great Organiser, being ecologically minded, ditched the proven yet highly toxic Jasco as the preferred paint stripper in favor of a citrus-based gel. In the past few years it seems as if citrus cleaners have become the panacea for all our ills. No doubt there's someone online who's flogging a citrus based ointment that is assured to make my hair regrow. I should check it out. Now when it comes to removing decades' worth of paint the orange peel extract just doesn't cut it, and heavens, we tried. It'll take off about a layer or so of anything latex based but beyond that it's slow going at best. Surveying the gradual progress I informed the Great Organiser that I was returning to the hardware store to pick up a heat gun. Seventy five bucks later I was back and wouldn't you know it, those things actually do the job; bugger the detail work, that's a job for our old friend Jasco. I've since bought a liter or so of that stuff too.

Stacked like dominos ready to totter over, the four doors are now leaning against each other in the back yard, begging for the hours upon hours of further attention they're going to need if ever they're to migrate their way into the house. Towards the end of Friday afternoon I wrote a brief email to a colleague at work wishing him a good weekend whilst mentioning that I was looking forward to some relaxing. Yesterday, whilst blasting away with a heat gun in one hand and a spatula all gummed up with melting paint in the other it occurred to me just how blatantly false that statement had turned out to be. What I'd hoped would be a chance to recharge the batteries over the course of three days turned into the beginning of a home improvement project that threatening to consume whatever free time I care to think I might have. I guess I've only got myself to blame.