"A house is not a home...and a door is still a door..."

Remember that song? Dionne Warwick and Luther Vandross both sang it...written by Burt Bacharach. I'm using a little poetic license as the line was actually, "a chair is still a chair...even when there's no one sitting there." But, this short blog is about us getting a new front door.

I am sentimental (I cry over Hallmark commercials)...I think that's been evident in past blogs, but I have been experiencing a melancholy moment or two over replacing our front doors. Don't get me wrong...they really needed replacing. We moved into this house when our daughters were in preschool and first grade. The poor old doors showed their age. After 30+ years of hanging Christmas wreaths and taping an occasional note to delivery people, the scars were many and deep. They had been revarnished, but they definitely didn't add to our "curb appeal".

So Joe and I started looking at other people's doors. You don't realize how many styles of front doors there are until you start looking. Then, when we found a style we liked, we couldn't believe how expensive doors are (did I say it was 30+ years since we'd bought doors?). So we went to a small hardware store on Coast Highway in Encinitas and started looking through books. We settled on a pair we liked and then contacted people to give us bids on staining and installing.

That began an odyssey of "ooops"...the first contractor pointed out that Joe had ordered two 3' doors and our opening is only 5'....that was 12 inches too much door!! Luckily, the order hadn't been placed, but it required another trip to Encinitas to find a different design. It was a happy mistake since the 30" doors are even nicer than the original 36" ones. We made arrangements for the installation with one contractor and staining by another after they were hung.

That's when the melancholy set in. Joe put the old doors out at the curb to be picked up by the trash. Too late, I realized I hadn't taken a "last picture" of them. Then I thought about all of the guests we greeted at that portal; the back to school photographs taken there; the prom night photos; greeting the girls and their husbands when they came to visit (one particular visit when Jackie and Neal walked in the door stating they had to check some video Neal had shot and then put in a video of their first ultrasound....Joe thought there was something wrong with the picture...I just cried!). More recently, I pictured three bundles of energy running through the front doors, through the house and into the backyard to check out the frogs in our pond.

Anyway, it seemed very unceremonial to just toss those doors at the curb. They protected us from the elements and kept us safe from harm for three decades and I am grateful to them. So this blog is my way of acknowledging their participation in the story of "us" and of welcoming the new guardians of our gate. It is likely that someday these doors will protect another family...I'll print this out and put it with the title so they will know how important they are.