By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation
So, I was looking at doors recently.
When you’re building anything, there are a bazillion little decisions to make, like which doors you want between spaces. I think that may be one reason I like remodeling more than building new things. With a remodel, the decisions come in fits and spurts; you have time to see how one thing works with another before making the next choice. Building new, though, requires a little more faith that all the ideas in your head are eventually going to get along with one another. But I digress.
We’re building a new space, and that space needs a few doors. Which, naturally, made me look at the interior doors I already have and wonder whether they could use a refresh too. To be fair, my current doors were purchased in a hurry years ago after I had been living without interior doors for some time. Who needs them when it’s just you and two toddlers? But then, company was coming to stay and I suddenly remembered that other adults tend to appreciate privacy. So, I ran over to VCM Salvage in Sandy Lake, loaded my little trailer with $100 pre-hung doors, and gave the house a semblance of civilization.
Those doors still work just fine. I never even got around to trimming them out, because they were always supposed to be temporary. Someday, I told myself, I would find the right doors. I’ve made multiple trips to Construction Junction in Pittsburgh over the years hoping to find them. So far, no luck. Which brings us back to me, sitting at my computer recently, looking at doors for approximately the thousandth time.
I’m apparently a very difficult door shopper, because it’s been a slog to find anything even close to what I want. I don’t want much, though! I just want some light to pass through my interior doors, which means glass, but not so much glass that a bedroom or bathroom stops being private. And then, I found it. The door. Craftsman style, simple, clean lines, with three panes of glass across the top. I went through the manufacturer’s build-a-door process, clicked on the final design, and…
Over $2,500. For one interior door. For a bedroom. Just…no.
I’m sure that door is worth $2,500 to someone, and I’m not going to judge where someone else wants to spend their money. But holy frijoles, that is a lot of money for a door that will spend most of its life blending quietly into the background and much of the rest of it closed while I’m asleep.
And that got me wondering, especially after last week’s question about what makes something worth keeping: what makes something worth paying for? Function? Beauty? Durability? Craftsmanship? Convenience? The pleasure of seeing it every day?
And it’s possible the answer changes completely depending on the object. I can understand spending more on a front door. It helps define the face of a house and displays the personality of a homeowner to their neighbors. My own neighborhood consists of trees, wildlife, and our pet turkey, so I’m not so worried about what they think of me based on our front door and I can’t see spending a small fortune on one.
So, what about garage doors? We’re building a garage, after all, and we would love some glass there too. Natural light matters in a workspace. But then I started pricing glass garage doors and, once again, holy frijoles.
I still want beautiful doors. I still want glass. I still want them to feel like they belong here.
I just don’t want them badly enough to spend $2,500 or more on each one. Okay, maybe for the garage door. That’s a BIG door, after all. And it has an important function. AND we’ll see it and use it constantly. So apparently, I do have a threshold where more money starts to make sense.
Otherwise, another trip to Construction Junction is probably in my future. Somewhere in that warehouse, I am convinced, are the right interior doors: probably unmatched, definitely a little odd, but somehow perfectly complementary.
And almost certainly not $2,500 apiece.
Roots & Renewal is where the Pellere Foundation shares the people, projects and occasional mud behind our work. Read along here, check out the podcast on YouTube or Spotify, or find us at pellere.org.
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