Frame completed, shelves made time to see if the doors fit their made-to-measure frames. And flushed with my success with the bedroom door - and given the fact that the frame is now more solidly in place and un-adjustable than a bridge over the M1 - I confidently unwrap the first door and 'offer it up' (professional carpentry term) to the 'gap' (unprofessional layman's term) I've sweated for days, to create for it.
And it fits in perfectly.
When I say 'perfectly' what I really mean is 'easily'. Too easily. The f*cking hole is too big. By about an inch, and since I've been measuring everything in centimetres, that can't be right. The bloody French. It's all their fault.
Still, it's better than being too small a frame, and with the judicious use of architrave and some more wood - if only I had some spare wood, oh yes actually I have about a ton or tonne (Frogs again) of spare wood. Not a problem then.
It's just a case of hanging the door now, hinges and that stuff, what could possibly go wrong?
Have you ever tried to hang a door? I don't mean take it off and then put it back where it was using the same screw holes, I mean hanging a door, from scratch?
Let's just say it's not easy. Like flying out of one's bedroom window unassisted is not easy. Or like eating a combined harvester is not easy.
You see, when the door is perfectly in place and at just the right height that it doesn't 'hit the top or bottom frames, you can't get at the hinges because they're trapped between the door and the frame. And when you open the door so you can screw in the hinges, the door tends to lean a little bit. Not much because you've cleverly put wedges and an old screwdriver and some coins underneath it becuse you're clever like that; but just enough so that when the hinges are aligned just right (and you've found another bloody screwdriver because the one you wanted is now holding up the bloody door), and have been screwed into place on the door and the frame, the door won't shut.
And you've now ruined the wood on the frame and the door where you'd sited your hinges and so the process begins again.
It only took four attempts and I closed the bedroom window so that the kids coming home from school wouldn't learn some new words.
Anyway it worked in the end. Next the two facing doors at the other end of the wardrobe. The first one went in first time, hinges perfect and the door closing and opening as if it had been designed by God Himself. The second door wasn't quite so perfect but I managed to get the hinges in place and had to 'shave' the door a little bit so that it would close properly without jamming on the top or bottom of the frame.
Shaving a door is not what I'd call fun. It involves a shaving thing (I think it's called a surform - which, again, inexplicably I had) and shaving a millimetre off the door for about ten minutes' vigorous and hard work, then 'offering it up' to the frame and finding out that you'd actually shaved the wrong bit.
Anyway eventually the second door fitted the frame; closed quite snugly but closed nonetheless. Cigar time I thought. But first I thought I'd enjoy the majesty of the two perfectly hinged facing doors closing together, meeting in the middle so to speak. Like a butler opening the double doors for you at a posh 'do' only in reverse.
I'd like to say at this point, that they went in, fitted perfectly together like a newly-wed couple.
But the fact is that they didn't. They overlapped. By about an inch.
Underterred, I smiled warmly, and went for a swim. I might or might not have said 'fuck-it' at some point; I can't now be sure.
I'm getting to like the spare room though. The squeaking from next door is a bit of a pain (I can now spell 'squeaking' you'll be relieved to know). I have suggested oil but she just looked at me suspiciously and said 'not until you've finished the bloody wardrobe'. Ho hum. ;)
To be continued...
I've always liked that phrase. It's a bit like 'follow that cab'. Just me? OK then.
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