Unhinged

New thing of the day, took off a door.

Home renovations have been on the back burner, despite how much they're needed. Inspiration came in the form of visiting a friend/coworker's new condo. Their place was amazing, beautiful, clean, well furnished and show worthy and made our place look and feel pretty shabby. I was a bit depressed, because they had everything settled and looking pretty. We still had work to do. Plus I don't have that interior design talent so we have a mix of furniture and display items that, well, I'm not sure really go together.

Anyway after talking with the husband, one thing we could do was take the door off the downstairs closet. It's right next to our front door and it's always a pain opening it with the front door there and taking off/putting on our shoes. Being Asian, we take off our shoes when we come in the house to keep everything cleaner and it's a tradition I like.

So after seeing the handymen who installed our washer/dryer, hammer out the pin that is part of the hinge of the door, and then taking off the door, decided to try it ourselves. Unfortunately the thing had lots of caked dried paint on it, and it was securely in there, but we were able to get it out after, oh, about 45 minutes of twisting and pounding. Most of the work was done by the husband. Although it was nice to feel like a part of the solution and we were able to take it off. The door currently sits in our garage along with the washer/dryer door (unit wouldn't fit).

I love it with the door off. It's so much easier and more room to put on/take off shoes. Plus opening/closing the front door isn't a hassle. We can have people over now and they will have a nice place to put their shoes. Although, the place is still not show ready in my opinion, at least the shoe situation is fixed.


This reminds me of one of my favorite moments from Ever After. Where they're breaking out Drew from jail and da Vinci basically does it ingeniously not by breaking the lock, but by unhinging the door so they could open it. Per IMDB memorable quotes


[after DaVinci opens a locked door by removing the pins from the hinges] 
Louise: Why, that was pure genius! 
Leonardo da Vinci: Yes, I shall go down in history as the man who opened a door! 


Just love that quote, and love that moment in the movie. Not that our taking off the door was ingenious, but it felt like, well, hopefully, we're creating a new opening in our lives, for home improvement. We've become so caught up in school, having fun, unwinding from work and all our other daily obligations, we sort of forgot about all the renovations and things that still need fixing with the place. Although the conversation left us slightly unhinged, we were glad we had it and know we need to get on those multiple projects we've been lagging on.

Also, the guest thing. It's not that we don't like our friends. I would love to have people over. It's just that, I feel like, I'm not happy with how the place looks just yet, so I don't want anyone to see the wreck in progress. Perhaps when more sweat and blood has gone into this place, when things look better, we'll be proud enough to show it off. I never wanted the perfect wedding, but I always wanted the perfect home. It's not really fabulous now, and needs a lot of work, so I guess I'm just sad I can't have the home for entertaining I always wanted. Hopefully this place cleans up nice and we are competent and good renovators. For now, time to get out hands dirty.