When we purchased our apartment, we had a new, super-duper-secure front door installed. This replaced the two old doors that had been used by a variety of renting tenants, and gave us the security of having a brand new set of keys. It also gave us a big ugly mess of crumbling bricks (mortared with something resembling hay and horse hair) in the doorway. The company that installed the new door had offered to repair the frame for us, but when they told us that it would cost an additional 1000 Litas, we decided that crumbly brick had a certain…charm.

We have often talked about how to repair the door ourselves: whether we would use drywall, or try to mix up concrete. The sight of broken bricks and chipped mortar has often been the subject of my daydreams, and has kept my brain spinning well into the night too many times. So, after much researching and measuring, and with more than a little trepidation, we finally dove into the unfamiliar territory of brickwork, cement, and drywall. It took four days, too many trips to the hardware store, a few leftover chunks of wood, an entire tube of wonder-glue, two sheets of drywall, and half of an apple crate, but we finally have a doorframe. It is still unpainted, and the bottom of the entry will be a piece of drywall until we can figure out what to do with it, but even if this white, square box is lacking in charm, it is fabulous.

Thankfully, the (almost) finished product doesn’t reveal the quirky details that went into its construction: like the finishing nails that are holding the metal drywall edging on, or the splinters of apple crate used as shims against the lumpy concrete wall, the splatters of quick-dry cement that always seemed to dry to quickly, or the three glue-laminated layers of drywall that dropped the header low enough to meet the doorframe. Eventually, the last of the plaster dust will be evicted from the crevices of our house, the smell of glue will vanish from the air, and my battered hands and aching arms will recover enough to let me forget the unpleasantness of sanding. Until then, I will chase after plaster dust, soothe my shoulders with hot packs, and wait to see where the next daydream leads.

Door Frame