Habitat Store

The Habitat for Humanity has a discount building material store, roughly the size of a small warehouse. It's across the street from the Homer Plessy site and around the corner from NOCCA, straight through the praline factory. The building itself contains a vast amount of donated material; doors, windows, furniture, books, miscellaneous hardware, sinks, tubs, scrap marble and granite, lighting fixtures, even a free-standing swimming pool. There's a certain smell familiar to those who frequent small hardware stores, a musty sense of use and need.

We specificially wanted a door for the bathroom to replace the crummy hollow semi-balsa ill-fitting existing door. Measuring is the easy part, but the paradox of choice is a factor- how do you match a contemporarily-built door (for the smallest room, no less) to a pair of fifty-year old doors in the same hallway?

Answer: buy an old door.

The Habitat store had several hundred for us to choose from. We found exactly the correct size and style door to use- it just needs paint and a knob. I also only paid forty-five bucks, less than half of the cost of a new solid wood door.

Score one for the home team, har de har har.