Not the Art Gallery

When I think about the word "louvre" I really had hoped that it would only serve one purpose in my life: to indicate the famous art gallery in Paris. "Louvre" or more aptly, "Louvred" has a whole new meaning for me. It refers to a door with slats in it for ventilation and it has become this week's headache.

We're having a new water heater installed, which is a whole story in itself. One of the results of the water heater installation is the need for us to bring our home up to new "County Standards." This includes either putting two gigantic vents in our stairway or adding a "louvred door" to our storage closet. This will allow for proper ventilation of our furnace and our new water heater, which will be using way too many BTUs in a classic case of American overconsumption.

I thought it would be easy to purchase a door. Well fairly easy. I thought tracking down one of those flat bed carts at Lowe's might be difficult and putting a couple of coats of white paint on the door might pose a problem now that the floor is finished and I have no where to paint. As usual, I underestimated the glee that the fates take in torturing me.

I went to Lowe's yesterday and couldn't find a door. (This was after I went to Home Depot, where I couldn't even get any service!) I finally went to the service desk and one of those derisive men helped me. You know the type. He hopes to bolster his self-confidence by indirectly pointing out how little you know and chuckling to himself about his superiority. Putting that aside for a minute, I discovered that I had to order a door and it would take 10 days to come in. Probably not soon enough, considering that they're installing the furnace on Monday and the inspector would be coming within a week. I figured I could work something out until I saw what the door would be made out of.

As usual I am the only person on the planet with this problem, so door manufacturers see absolutely no need to make white prefab louvred doors. Instead they make these very tacky, crappy, yet expensive pine doors. Looking at this material, I stood there picturing the 4+ coats of paint it would take and all of the drips I would have from the sheet frustration of trying to coat all of those little angled slats. I quickly saw this was not going to work.

I wish I could tie a pretty little bow on this story and tell you that I've decided what to do, but alas no I haven't. My brother did tell me the vents in the wall were a possibility. But then who wants giant vents up and down their walls?