I Love My Door

I’m back. That has nothing to do with doors, but I thought a short explanation about my long hiatus from blogging was required. I seems I left off somewhere in April, though I had never been a prolific blogger. It’s a self-conscious thing, which makes you question how much everyone wants to know your point of view, on whatever subject. Several persistent inquiries led me to believe that some of what I said or showed was of interest, so I’m back.

Hiatus – Mandated by the insane schedule we kept last year that finally caught up to me in April when the house was nearing completion, my son was having his birthday (May 1) and his Bar Mitzvah (May 6th), meaning 100 close friends and relatives came to town for a weekend long celebration that I orchestrated, my daughter had to be readied for her Senior Prom (May 13th) and had her birthday (May 15th). Throw Mother’s Day in there somewhere when I took a day off to play tennis and mah jong. This followed by more completing of the house, working on client projects in Boston and Woods Hole, and finally our move back into the newly renovated house (in pieces from June 2 – 8, our first night there). Followed by our daughter’s high school graduation (June 9th) our wedding anniversary (June 10th) and her graduation party (June 11th), my mother-in-law’s 70th birthday weekend in Pennsylvania (June 17th), writing of articles, unpacking and arranging and breaking down of seemingly hundreds of boxes (from a year ago).

And then it was summer with an endless stream of visitors and events including a dinner party for 25 with such luminaries as Jimmy Breslin and Rip Torn, the Woods Hole Film Festival and its accompanying cult of aspiring filmmakers who my husband attracts like flies and then offers overnight accommodations, assorted charitable events, social occasions, our niece’s Bat Mitzvah in NY, weekend visitors, dinner guests, and people who just drop by. Somewhere in there we moved our piano from Cambridge where it too had been stored for over a year, and moved out of our Back Bay apartment. More articles, a lot of tennis, some sailing, more client projects, a Red Sox game (game 5 of their losing streak to the Yankees – too painful to recount), more visits, preparing our daughter for college, taking her to college, recovering from taking her to college, a mortgage refinancing, the beginning of school for our son, and suddenly time.

Time.

Time.

It was almost too impossible to even imagine after all that craziness.

Now back in some routine, some organized chaos of balancing work and play, life has returned to a manageable state in which I may be able to write again.

And now – My Door.

It all started with a coffee table. I went to Mohr & McPherson, www.mohr-mcpherson.com/, during their annual sale in June of 2005 before we had moved a chair or hat to Woods Hole. I wanted a coffee table. A simple furniture item that I had been denied for most of my married life. Why? I really don’t have an answer for that except it seemed that Jonathan (husband) seemed to have some incoherent aversion to having one in his house. I needed a place to put my feet when I read, to rest a glass and a cheese board when I entertained, somewhere for my coaster collection!
I wandered around their voluminous warehouse for probably an hour falling in love with every carved surface, every glass panel, every color of every table they had on the floor which totaled more than 100 – each one unique. After looking and looking I settled on not one but two that were the answer to my dreams. One a very clunky, raw wooden table that needed a glass top, and the other an enormous red stained, carved Chinese table that wouldn’t be overshadowed by the orange ultra-suede love seat and ottoman, and purple ultra-suede couch I was having re-upholstered prior to our move.
But how could I choose, and then bring these home to Jonathan and not worry that he wouldn’t approve. Besides, I had to choose between the two.


So I brought Jonathan back to the warehouse with me. He knew I was determined, and he’d had a change of heart, so the idea of “coffee table” was not out of the question. And he actually liked a lot of what he saw. He too wandered around the warehouse for a while and finally told me about two he liked. I did not coach or suggest or direct, but as love will have it, he picked out the exact same ones I had chosen – is that a match made in heaven or what? I was thrilled.
We could not decide between the two, so got both. And we are talking very reasonable prices. Something like $400 for the large red one, and $275 for the raw wooden one. We didn’t know quite where we expected to put the big clunky one, but its rawness was so compelling we just had to take it. And that price – oh vey, what a steal.


Before we got out of there however, we wandered around a bit more and saw these carved wooden screens. They were masterfully done with dozens of stylized people performing a fascinating array of activities we couldn’t figure out, but they looked cool doing it. I think it said the screen was Indian, but Jonathan seems to remember Pakistani. It was this wonderful ashy brown color that we knew our house, when it was built, would weather to, and we were sold. This was our new door, though the house was nowhere near ready to receive it.

















It sat in the new old house that summer while our contractor cogitated how it could be turned into a door. There was the inevitable head scratching and speculating about how a frame for the door could be put together. Should there be backing? How could it be made weather proof? Would it fit in the doorframe we had on the plans? What kind of hardware would go with it?
Our contractor brought it to a specialist named Wayne Hatt, who is legendary in these parts for his brilliance with wood of all kinds, shapes and ultimate uses. When I finally met Wayne, months after the door was installed, at the party of a mutual friend, and introduced myself, he just chuckled and called his wife over to have her meet the “door” lady.
Wayne devised a simple frame that would essentially encase the screen in a wooden frame. He determined that our screen was made of a Filipino mahogany, so he chose a complimentary unstained mahogany for the frame. Though he was worried about whether he could shim or shave the screen into a squared format, and had no access to me (don’t ask why), he figured out a solution that would adhere to the measurement of our doorframe and provide a solid case for the screen.
As it happened, the coloring of the woods could not be more complimentary. The ashy browns work beautifully together. The darker screen with the lighter-colored frame offset each other, and work very well with the cedar siding on the house.



When our contractor unloaded the door in early April he boldly admitted that he wasn’t crazy about the piece – he didn’t see it as a front door. But I saw otherwise. I swooned – yes, my heart actually leapt at the beauty of the piece. It made me see how incredible the whole house was going to be and how proud I would be when I could walk through it each day.
I think it was finally installed in late May sometime. There had been a temporary door put in place throughout the construction phase, to keep the weather out, and so that this door did not get damaged. It was the absolute icing on the cake for me, pulling the look of the whole house together. And its message would be clear – something unusual is going on beyond this door – this is not your ordinary door - this is not your ordinary home.
Everyone who walks through it comments on it. Where did you get this? Those of them who know of our round the world trip in 2002 ask about where we bought it on the trip and wonder how we got it back. It gets boring telling them that we bought it in Cambridge – so unromantic, so ordinary. Sometimes I go along with their hypothesis and we talk about east Asian art and what exactly the people on the screen are doing – perhaps some religious offering, perhaps just making soup and doing laundry – probably the latter.




Talk about welcoming



I love my door. Its part conversation piece, part cultural icon, part personal statement. I took a pale white stain to the frame to weather protect it and it seems to be holding up well. The lockset is a very simple burnished bronze, nothing too ostentatious. When I look at the other doors I could have had, with nice little windowpanes, and raised panels perhaps, I know they are not me, not us. This door is us and it fits our frame.





Looks just as good from the inside as from the outside.







And it certainly fits in with the overall design of the house.