The Red Door

The hallway renovation continues! This is becoming quite the epic redo as it seems to be taking a good bit longer than expected. What should have been done in a few days has taken the better part of a week and is still not complete. Perhaps a few more days will see the culmination of the project...at least I hope! One of today's chores was to paint a door that leads into the living room. Not that we particularly need a door here as it is rarely used to block off anything. It sort of hangs there being in the way. It is just that I like it..so it stays.The door itself makes me happy. It reminds me of the door that led from the living room out to the screened front porch of my childhood home. It is the same style door. I do not have a screened porch so this door hangs prominently between the hallway and the living room. Of course the old door at my folk's home was not red..it was stained a nice warm brown. My door was painted when I got it years ago so it definitely needed painting again and red seems to be the "color of choice" lately in the Little Bayou House.

The door I grew up with was one of my earliest "architectural" memories. A favorite thing of mine to do as a child was to stare out the windows of this door at the few strings of Christmas lights that Dad would occasionally put up on the porch. The lights were nothing like the fancy things of today but the old, large, glass bulbs. Being the youngest, I never was allowed to help with the lights but oh, my goodness!...what a beautiful sight those colored lights were through the windows of that door! I was captivated by the sheer beauty! And oh, how poor Mom must have cringed as the lights were just strung haphazardly here and there. There was never enough to put up on the entire front of the house and there was never any rhyme nor reason as to how they were strung. Most of the time, Mom just relented to let Dad and the kids have fun..and what fun we had! Gorgeous!

Another memory of the door..it had a LOCK! And this lock had a KEY! Yeah..strange memory..but back in the day, we did not lock doors so there was really no need for a key. For that matter, the only time the door was ever closed was during winter! The key sort of hung in the lock without ever really serving a purpose. Still..there was a key and that key fascinated me. I would try my best to lock the door but as with all old locks, the key had to be perfectly aligned in the keyhole to work. I was too small to keep the key level in the hole so it would turn, therefore, locking the door was near impossible. Then..if per chance I ever did manage to get the thing locked, I surely could not unlock it! I did not get to salvage the door when the old house was torn down, but I did get to save the key! Memories!

My door is much like that key..it does not serve any logical purpose. As soon as the paint dries, this door will be rehung and there it will hang evoking memories of the past. There it will hang being in the way of everything! Still, I like it..so it will stay!