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360 on the doors

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

In one afternoon, I have totally changed my thinking about interior doors.

Originally, I had been thinking about rustic wood plank doors. Then I looked at prices and decided that it wasn’t worth it.

Then I found some pretty nice and inexpensive wood doors at Lowe’s that I liked. They have a kind of arch in the top panel that I thought would look nice with our other arches.

This afternoon we went to visit someone’s house who has solar to see his setup. (We also heard he has a very nice adobe house, and I’m always eager to get new ideas on interiors.) We weren’t exactly sure where he lived and inadvertently ended up at someone else’s house. It was someone else we’d wanted to see though (they’re on the board of the local fire & rescue, for whom we are doing a web site, and they have done their own lovely cabinetry), and so we took a quick tour of their house. It was a very nice house, and they have done all the work themselves. As we were walking through, lo and behold, they had the Lowe’s doors I was thinking about. I really liked how they looked which helped confirm my plans to go with these doors.

Then we went on to the house we had actually intended to visit. Wow. Beautiful house. And all the interior doors were made by the owner out of plank wood. They were stunning. He said that all he did was laid 2×8’s on a table, glued the edges, and clamped them. When they dried, he nailed two planks crosswise at the top and bottom to add stability. Then he rough finished them with a wire wheel and distressed them a bit to add character. (He also hand forged his own cast iron handles, but I would be happy just buying those.) So that all seemed manageable and something we could do (which Brad confirmed on the way home).

We really only have one interior door in the main house, but we have several in Tumbleweed. I would like to try this there. My only real hesitation is that we have so much else to do, but I think we could leave this door project until after we move in.

Also on this drive, we found another old abandoned train car. I took pictures and am still working on my collection. Stay tuned.

By the way, it is windy and cold here. Yesterday, it was 36 when I left in the morning. They are talking about possible snow later in the week.

Old wrecked train cars

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

There used to be a railway through our valley. I know this in part because you can see old tracks in some places and in part because I researched a deed restriction related to the railroads when we bought our land.

As a result, there are several old abandoned train cars on the plains here. They are beautiful. I’ve begun photographing them and hope to have a whole collection of pictures soon. In the meantime, here’s a preview. (Click image to enlarge.)