When God Closes a Door, He Opens a Window

The mirror refinishing project is coming along nicely and I hope to have a finished product by my next posting.  Here's what it looked like before I started.

As you can see, it's a nice mirror with a decorative frame.  You can tell in the larger picture that the mirror is beveled around the outside.  The problem with this thing is that it has about 17 coats of paint on it.  The paint was caked on so thick that some of the detail in the carving was lost.  Needless to say, the paint had to go.


So, I'm in the process of getting the mirror to a presentable state and I'll share more pictures of the before, during and after of the entire endeavor.  Although I had thoughts of doing more, I'm only refinishing the frame.  I'm not entirely comfortable with resilvering the glass, so I'll wait until I can practice on a junk mirror for that little science project.  In fact, I didn't even know what resilvering was until I started doing research for this mirror.  For those who don't know, it involves using chemicals to remove the backing of the mirrored glass and then replacing it.  Sounds like more than I wanted to tackle for this project, so I'll let it wait until another time.


Even without the resilvering, I think it's going to look really nice.  It should be finished soon.  Maybe even as soon as tomorrow.  When it's ready, you'll see it here first.


So, since I don't have a restored mirror to show you AND since I had a request or two to tell this story...


Occasionally, I find myself discussing various arts and crafts project or antiques with people.  The conversation usually begins with the other person saying A:  "I didn't know you were into..."  or B:  "Since you're into..."  I was having one of these conversations recently with Sonya, the wife of Bro. Ben, who is the pastor at our church.  She and I were talking about various uses for old solid wood doors and she mentioned that she wanted to build a table using a door.  I had an old door in my garage that I had considered using for a table, so we had plenty to talk about.  That was about 3 months ago.

Around that same time, a house next door to the church was slated for destruction.  The church owns the house and has been renting it out for the last few years.  It's now vacant and, being a pretty old house, is getting pretty run-down.  Rather than sink a lot of money into the house, it was decided that we would tear it down and use the lot for parking.  When I learned that the house was going to be leveled, I started inquiring about getting inside to see if there might be something worth saving.  The house was probably built in the 1940's, so it was possible that I could score some nice decorative architectural pieces.  I'd hate for that stuff to go down with the ship when I can repurpose it and give it a second chance.


Last week, Sonya mentioned that she may have a line on a door.  Apparently, she also had her eye on the house, hoping that there might be a door that would work for her table idea.  So, I told her that if she got the chance to go in the house and scavenge, to be sure to include me.  Since she has "connections", she was able to get the ok for us to check out the house the next day.


We met at the house the next day and I was informed of one slight problem with the plan.  It seems that the only key to the house was in the music minister's truck.  In Mississippi.  Plan B was obvious.  B&E.  (That's breaking and entering for all of you without criminal experience.  I learned it on TV...)  Since Brother Ben was present and sanctioned the crime, I had no problem carrying out the plan.  I assumed he had it cleared with the higher-ups, so all was well.  If the cops showed up during the commission of the 10-31, I could tell them, "Hey, guys...It's cool.  God said we could go in."  Surely, they wouldn't argue with that authorization.

Now, let me be clear about this.  I don't think Brother Ben has a stack of Get Out of Jail Free cards.  I don't think he is authorized to give the divine approval stamp for an assortment of crimes.  Please don't call him and say "Hey, Brother Ben...I hear you got the hook up with The Big Man, so ask him if it's ok for me to knock over a liquor store."  I'm pretty sure you won't get the answer you're looking for.

But, I digress...

I've learned that when the obvious choice isn't really a choice, you should look for the less than obvious choice.  The old cat skinning thing.  I've never skinned a cat, but I have been tempted to shoot a couple of them.  In fact, I had such an intense dislike for Ashli's cats...

Sorry, I was digressing again.

The doors were locked and the key was several hundred miles away.  My first thought was to just kick the door in, but Brother Ben didn't want to leave the house unsecured.  After thinking about it, that made sense.  If we left the door hanging open, somebody would have a meth lab set up in there within a day or two.  Also, in the back of my mind, I had this fear that I would end up falling and breaking my leg in my attempt to kick the door off the hinges.  So, I was relieved that this option was taken off the table.

Next, we checked out the windows.  One was broken and was covered with cardboard and duct tape.  I could have removed the cardboard, but the likelihood of being eviscerated by the broken glass remnants was just too great.  Keep looking.  We finally found a window at the back of the house that wasn't locked, but appeared to have been painted shut sometime during the Eisenhower administration.  But, Ike would tell me to get my tools out and make it happen, so I got to work on the window.  After a few minutes of hammering, prying and pushing, I got it to break loose.

I had to stand on a stool to get up to the window and, when I got through it, I ended up in the kitchen sink.  But, I was glad to have somewhere to land.  I hopped down, opened the door and let Sonya and Ben in.


Ben dropped a few hints that he didn't want to start a Fred Sanford situation at their house.  He didn't come right out and say "I don't want our house to look like John's", but I could read between the lines.  But, I don't think Sonya had intentions of completely looting the house.  She just wanted a couple of doors, so we took the tour to see what we might be able to rescue.


There were several solid wood doors to choose from and we started removing them from their hinges and stacking them against the wall.  It soon became clear that these doors were not your ordinary solid doors.  After lifting a couple of them, I became convinced that they were made with some sort of Titanium/Kryptonite alloy that is 1000 times as dense as the cranium of a teenage girl.

We found two small doors that were about 2/3 the size of the larger doors and they were heavy, too.  I suspect that the Earth's gravity was somewhat different in the 40's, so these doors didn't seem nearly as heavy at the time they were originally installed.  By my calculations, the Earth's gravitational pull in 1940 was approximately the equivalent of the moon's gravitational pull today.  I have no scientific proof of this theory other than the weight of the doors.  But, I challenge you to lift these doors and then argue with me.

During the removal of the bathroom door, I almost fell into the toilet.  Sonya said that if I had actually fallen in and drowned, she would have snuck back to the church and disavowed any knowledge of my presence in the house.  If the roles had been reversed, I really can't say that I would have acted any differently.

So, after we got all the doors down, we decided to grab some of the more decorative pieces of the door facings.  Decorative is a relative term and none of these pieces of trim was especially elaborate, but they will look nice when I transform them into coat racks or some other useful piece of decor.  After the trim work was removed, I decided to see if I could free the mantle from the fireplace.

Again, not very elaborate, but a nice piece.  Opening up that old fireplace made me think of a house Tanya and I lived in during the summer of 1991.  It was an old house and it belonged to Floyd, a co-worker of her dad.  His mother had lived there until she died and the house had been empty for a while.  He needed to rent it, we needed a place to live for a while and things progressed from there.

The house had a fireplace in it, but the fireplace was covered with a piece of plywood.  Tanya's sister, Angela, who was about 14 at the time came to the house one day and asked about the fireplace.  I told her that Floyd had stuffed his mother inside and boarded it up.  Because I did so with a straight face and because, at 14, she didn't know how to tell that someone was yanking her chain, she believed me.  From that point forward, she didn't like coming to our house and she especially didn't like being in the living room near the fireplace.  She really thought Floyd's mother was going to reach out, grab her and pull her into the great fireplace of doom.  I don't know that I ever bothered to tell her otherwise.

 

But, anyway, I got the mantle out and it actually fit perfectly in the back of the Expedition. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I'm sure some opportunity will arise.  I may just strip it and refinish it.  I think the same guy who painted the mirror also painted this mantle.  I suspect he was a major shareholder in Sherwin-Williams.

Here's a shot of the top of one of the door facings I got.  I'm looking forward to making something out of them.  More on that another day.









Word of the burglary of the house, with the blessing of Brother Ben, soon traveled around church.  I'm sure there were scandalous stories that would make great headlines for the Weekly World News.  

PREACHER'S WIFE CAUGHT IN ABANDONED HOUSE RENDEZ-VOUS WITH CHURCH DEACON!!!

STEAMY PICTURES INSIDE THE LOVE NEST!!!

Sorry to disappoint anyone, but we were just stealing stuff.

Tune in to later episodes to see the fruits of our criminal labor.

I know this one was a bit lengthy, but thanks for reading! Please follow my blog and share it with your friends, follow me on Twitter and Pinterest in the Connect With Me section and feel free to leave comments below.


Thanks again!!!


John