I've been saying for a while now that I would say something about the door we bought. I wouldn't say it was an impulse buy, I would however say we bought it with swift confidence. All along we thought we were going to put a plain steel door on the house and cut in some sort of rarified peep hole and a mail slot. We were going to paint the door on the outside and the plan had been to keep that canvas developing-- adding paint and repainting on a regular schedule (in our copious spare time).
We've started noticing a number of small building supply vendors on Third Avenue, during our almost weekly walks to Lowes. There's a tile and flooring guy, a knob store, and this guy who makes wood doors all within a couple blocks of each other (not to mention various trades shops, plumbing, electrical, etc.). I think I'm beginning to understand my relationship with Lowes, it's a great place to do research (cause they have examples, albeit thin in places, of EVERYTHING!) whether we make a purchases there or not. Granted I get my share of odds and ends there, but all the major purchases we've done to date have been through other means. (Not to mention the quality at Lowes is fair-to-middling at best. (Yes, we are that kind of snob.))
The door guy: he sells mainly solid mahogany entry doors. He does a lot of carved chinese doors and he also does classic New York apartment doors. As soon as we saw the one (see Michael's drawing for panels and glass configuration) we ultimately ended up buying, we were both acting hesitant, but ultimately, sold.
You think that would be enough excitement for one week, but No! Then came the whole "lock set" situation. I knew a lot of choices were out there, but I never guessed at the array of price ranges for seemingly similar and overtly abundant products. After having kicked the tires on a few at Simon's Hardware I began to find the differences in feel and mechanices -- a subtle comparison that Lowes can't offer. As usual I called Holly to verify I had not been ripped off by buying a Baldwin "Estate" (in your best Jeeves accent "your estate, sah...") lock set. The one we ended up choosing is really simple: the Midtown (6910.264). Holly says she uses them pretty regularly in Florida because they resist pitting far better than the lower priced competitors. That was enough for me (so sad).
The lock set and matching mail slot arrived today. The door should be ready in about three weeks. The job now is to try and stall the installation of the siding until the new door frame can be installed. At the rate that things move I'm sure that won't be a problem.
Tomorrow...we have a firm start date!!!
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