I think we woke up fighting, I don’t know, and I don’t want to remember. The whole project was as usual; he had never put french doors in a house, so the whole thing would end up as a day full of trial and error. I, his designated helper, was immaturely mad. I had other things I wanted to do as in finish formatting a book, but that could wait. The doors needed to be put up before they got broken, or worse, saturated in poodle pee.
The weather condition was pleasantly warm and windy, so we could keep the house open for a good few hours. The dogs were happy. They had about a six ft. open space, which made it easier for them to come and go for bathroom and exploring purposes. We spent six hours of the day doing, and redoing, the door frame because the doors didn’t fit quite right. I was livid, which in many ways was my natural demeanor these last two years.
“Did you do any research on this? I mean, it took us an hour to measure, cut, and nail in that frame, and I told you to tack it, but you didn’t, you put like a zillion nails in there. And now, the door won’t reach the other door, so you have to fix the threshold? And that means we have to rip out everything and start over?” I was not happy, and by this time, it was 2:00 in the afternoon. We’d spent the morning discussing and researching formatting a book. The type of book we were working on was different from anything we’d ever done before, so our patience was already compromised. We’d had a couple of yelling fits already.
“Look at it this way, we’re learning something, so we’ll be smarter. And yes, we have to take it out, but not all the way, just part of the way.” He’d already started sawing the shims with his hacksaw. I sat, two feet away from him, watching the sawdust fly into my house, and onto my furniture, which I knew would take weeks to get completely rid of. The little wood pieces hit the floor, while I continued to nag.
“We should have hired someone. We don’t do this, so it takes us twice as long. We should’ve hired the professionals to come in and do it for us. That’s what they do, so they’re in and out in no time,” I griped, holding the level as I sat planted comfortably on a stool while he worked.
“Yes, but with a large amount of my money. I need the exercise, and the money for our kids in college, so we can take a day and learn how to do this.” I watched him measure, and then go make the cut on the silver metal piece that would be screwed into the floor within the next minutes. The dogs happily ran in and out of the room while I sat contemplating cleaning up what I could, but in the end, there was no use. So I sat, clenching my jaw, hating the next few hours of the day, thinking there were other things I wanted to do. Then it hit me; we’d spent the day together, bickering and angry-a little disagreeable, but in the end, it wasn’t miserable.
I thought back on the last few months (and the last year). We fought a lot because we were faced with the fact that we didn’t have anything in common anymore. He knew it as well as I, and although we’d tried to find things to do together, we still hadn’t successfully completed that mission. I sat, watching the dogs, looking at that hole in my house thinking how it would take us both to fix it. We both had a part to play, and if one of us gave up, the hole would just be a large gateway for more damage. He came back in and immediately put the piece in, and it worked.
“I like it when it works,” he said, backing up to survey the frame that was only partially torn out. It wouldn’t be hard to put it back in place, and then nail it again with another fifty nails from that loud and obnoxious nail gun. I watched him get his mind on what needed to happen next, him outside the door, with the dogs, and me inside, just feet away.
“I’ll pop that in place, no nails, and then let’s get the door to see if it will work. I think it will. . . ” I interrupted him by jumping up and throwing my arms around his neck, and planting a kiss on him. He was startled, so it took us a couple of times to sink up, but he didn’t reject it.
“And that was for . . . ”
“We fought this morning, and then just about every step of the way with this project, and now, we needed a big finish. That’s the only way we’ll get through this day, right?”
You know, the rest of the day WAS just right. We finished that door at sunset, cleaned up all the tools and the sawdust, inside and out, together, and the doors are a beautiful, much-needed addition that leads out to our patio. And by the time we calculated our savings, we came out thousands ahead in so many more ways than one.
We’re still working on finding that happy medium, but until then, if we both keep making attempts at doing something a little off-color, and keeping the other guessing, the value of our home will just keep going up.
That day had everything attached to it; emotion, anger, frustration, conflict, and romance. Who knew that there could be so much to offer in the installation of a door? š
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