Changing out the front door

This morning Mike and Sally (who have done or arranged most of the work we've had done on the house) and Ed started work on replacing the front door. When they bought the new door for the terrace, they got one that was slightly too big and didn't take it back to exchange for the smaller one. Instead it's been standing in our living room for almost a year. The old front door was ugly and very drafty (Ed put duct tape over joints where you could see daylight) and single-glazed. The extra door happens to fit that spot almost perfectly. So this week we are getting a new nicer looking and less airy front door. Here you can see, from inside the airlock entry, the frame of the new door in place. The old door and glass panel are leaning on the wall of the barn behind us; the edge of the fioul tank is just visible on the right.

Here's the same spot, looking from the outside in, this evening after we took the garbage out. On the left is the spiral staircase to the "conservatory;" on the right is the fioul tank. The interior door you can see is another unattractive aluminum-framed thing, but it will do for now.

The kitchen is painted now, ready for us to start adding cabinets and shelving. Ed finished taking off the masking tape this afternoon. The next project here will be installing cabinets either side of the sink; these will be the same ones from IKEA that we used in Amstelveen.

This morning's mail brought the return receipt for the check we sent to the mortgage company, so we know it got that far. Last Thursday was the fourth anniversary of when we first saw this house, after looking at dozens of others over the months before. Saturday was the fourth anniversary of the day we signed the compromis å vente. (It took another six months to finalize the sale.)

Lydia is not eating much at all. This is a bad sign and we're a bit worried about her.

The weather is very cold (high of 0.2C today), but at least it's dry and still. Tomorrow is supposed to be foggy; this was already starting to accumulate when we took out the garbage. The weekend weather was gray and cold, encouraging us to stay home around the fire rather than venturing out to a market.