You undoubtedly have all sorts of doors in your house, dear reader. A front- back- between- sliding- kitchen- shed- swing- screen- or bedroom door. You don’t think about it. You might even slammed one at some point.
Doors are so obvious
Deep sigh. Of course, things are different here. How could they be otherwise? Now that we’re busy renovating the Casa Principal 1º andar (just a few more months, and it’ll be ready to rent out!), all sorts of things are going on with the doors.
For starters, two have disappeared. Now, this tenant of the past five years was apparently quite capable of doing all kinds of unsuspected things, but to have two doors disappear completely—that’s quite an achievement, actually. The other six are currently being worked on by professional carpenter Mário, who is stationed here for the coming months, and they’re going to look fantastic.
They’re old-fashioned profile doors, about eighty years old. A frame, and then all sorts of panels with edges. Very beautiful, but you can’t just copy them. You need a professional workshop for that, and we don’t have one of those. Perhaps the carpentry shop across the valley might know what to do; they’ll probably also be able to figure out the price of that …
There are quite a few doors in a house,
and as I said, you don’t think about it. I do now, because I’d like to make a sliding door myself (in Portuguese it’s called “uma porta de correr” – a running door) from a beautiful, large double-glazed window, a gorgeous sheer curtain embroidered with flowers, and epoxy. Then Mário can put it in a large frame, and we can close off the hallway with the kitchen, living room, office, and winter garden of the Casa Principal 1º andar (just a few more months, and it’ll be ready to rent out!) from the 4 bedrooms during the colder months.
Renovating a house is always a recipe for sleepless nights, because the ideas tumble over each other. Now, ideas are all good and well, but not all are practical. Now that’s okay, because if you think about them long enough, the stupid ones will disqualify spontaneously.
My focus right now is mainly on doors. Do you want a door in your walk-in closet? Or do you just want to be able to walk right in? Do we want kitchen cabinet doors, screen doors, two doors in the kitchen – and if so, what kind of doors? I think of sliding doors because they’re so unobtrusive. They take up very little space. With a regular swing door, you always have to keep that swing space clear.
Plus, the challenges we face here: we have to install a door next to a fairytale mosaic. Honestly, you can’t just put a regular door next to this, can you? Our last guest, Jim, was blown away: “What beautiful wood, where did you get it?” “We had to remove an alder tree that was growing in the wrong place, and I saved a few branches. Yes, beautiful, isn’t it?”
“And the inside of the picture frames, fantastic, how did you come up with that idea!” (Thanks, Jim)
I’m currently working on a front door for the Birdhouse – the last project we finished. That’s what happens when you do everything differently; you can’t just slap a front door on there. The Birdhouse is called that because of the mosaics, and they’re quite a defining feature.
The big advantage of making a door yourself – and especially a front door – is that you can insulate it incredibly well. And for me, the biggest plus was: I could use the two windows with antique frosted glass. You don’t see that anywhere anymore.
I think a front door with a window is the absolute best. Now all I need is a screen door, and the incoming tenants will be happy!
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We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal.
We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.
You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.
Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.