The Doors

It's been awhile. And I apologize... but I've been pretty much on my death bed for the entire month of April. First, as you know, it was the strep. Then I came down with conjunctivitis. Then I came down with some sort of bronchitis, from which I am still recovering by the way.

Mike got none of it - of course.

But despite my online absence, we've still been working. (And when I say we, I mean Mike because I've been totally out of commission.) 

Let me start first with our door drama.

As you know, the fam and I bought Mike a giant garage door for xmas. A giant garage door for our two-car one-door not-one-large-door-one-small-door garage. But due to inclement weather and misc sickness, it's been sitting around since January in boxes. The door itself, the hardware, the tracks, and all the accessories we purchased... just hanging out in the boxes.

A few Sundays ago, we were finally ready to install. And I mean, this was do or die. The previous Saturday night, Mike and a few of his friends cleaned out the garage, cut a gigantic hole, removed the old door, and pushed out the project cars. A door had to go in by end of day Sunday. Otherwise let me just put up a red flag and a sign out front: FREE STUFF! GARAGE NOW OPEN FOR LOOTING!

Sunday morning Mike went out to the HD and purchased the garage door opener. (Eeee! So exciting!) As soon as he arrived back home, the door dude arrived. The weather was beautiful, the pre-construction was accurate, and everything was perfect.... But we were missing pieces. Big deal pieces. The low headroom kit that would allow the door to open properly was missing.

I could've sworn we paid for that.

But we had no invoice, receipt, order confirmation, package inventory, or other manner of documentation could be found anywhere. I had an email, which I received after ordering the door on Home Depot's online garage door custom ordering website. You know what it said? "Thanks for ordering blah blah blah." Nothing about - here's what you ordered and here's the cost breakdown...

Lovely.

The guys went back to the DeepHo, purchased the low headroom kit in stock, and returned after all that to find out that it wasn't going to work. So the door was installed.... but it couldn't go up. (At least our stuff was safe though.... So safe, not even we could get to it!)

Now, at this point, I'd like to take a break in the narrative to talk about WHAT a difference the new door (working or not) has made to the garage. First, the outside. It looks like a real live two car garage now. A nice one at that... save for a little trim around the edges. And when you open the door... (not that it could be opened at this point in the story) the whole garage world is your oyster!

Inside, the white of the door makes the entire garage look bigger when the door is closed. Mike is thrilled beyond belief.

And now we fast forward to just last weekend. Mike called the door company and they confirmed that in fact we did not order a low headroom kit. (Uh-huh, is my response. I need to call them back to get an actual receipt.) So, back to the DeepHo. But the salesperson told Mike the kit he'd bought previously would work. So, back home.

Mike and the door dude make some modifications and at long last, the door went up and down! Mike installed the opener too - so just imagine, we hit the button and it opens! No more of this fumbling for the padlock key and trying to get the durn thing to open when it's frozen in the middle of winter. The garage door opener even came with a wireless keypad for the side of the garage. (Yet to be installed.) All these creature comforts! I'm loving it and I haven't even pressed my button yet.