While we were at Maggie's, we decided to help Ryan and Maggie out with a project. Their front door opens into the daylight basement, with a garage on one side and a small workshop on the other. That means all the projects and tools in the workshop are visible as soon as you enter the door. That isn't the best look in the world.

So we decided to hang a bunch of narrow "doors" in the opening. Some of them would slide on closet tracks, others would simply be hung on eye bolts so they could be removed if full access was necessary.

Ryan and I spent part of a day looking for premade doors for the project, then the four of us went and bought all the materials. The problem with premade doors is they were the normal 6.5 feet tall, where we wanted doors that were a full 8 feet.

After a little bit of discussion, we decided on a 2x4 frame with no plywood facing, but we'd use metal brackets to join the pieces and to give it a certain look. The idea is that the open panels will be filled in with double-wall corrugated plastic (like Solexx), which will be somewhat translucent but will still hide the room. Also, Maggie and Tamara stained the wood, which really helped out the looks.

Eventually I'll probably update this page with the finished pictures- just waiting for Maggie and Ryan to find the right material!

It was really fun to work on a project with our friends. It was funny to have four geeks doing a hands-on project- we certainly approached it differently than non-geeks would have.

Maggie and Ryan have two cats- they are almost identical. The easiest way to tell them apart is by the nose- only Sappho has a black nose. Sappho is also softer, a little pudgier, and very shy.