January 2011

Yesterday, we ordered the security doors for the house. Since we have Santa Fe style architecture, we’re going with doors that reflect the style. The figure at the bottom of the door is Kokopeli, a Native American icon seen throughout the southwest. The sunset and the symbol in the center of the door are also Native American style.

Damsel and I originally contacted a vendor we found on the internet. We started the process with them but soon realized they weren’t responding to our inquiries about custom colors and styles like they weren’t paying attention or something.

When we made a trip to the Phoenix Metro area for supplies, quite by accident we found another steel screen door vendor in a strip mall. We went in and discovered that not only did they have the exact same doors as the on-line guys, but offered them at less than half the cost we were originally quoted. We arranged for a measurement session with the new guys and called the others to cancel.

Since we’re paying much less for the doors, we decided to get steel doors for the patio and garage door. They should be installed in about four weeks.

Our contractor completed the first milestone on the construction of the courtyard wall. The concrete truck and pumping crew showed up yesterday to pump in the concrete for the footing. The ‘mud’ came the day after the contractor dug the trench with his backhoe and installed the rebar.

The next steps will be delivery of the concrete blocks to the site. The masonry should begin shortly after the blocks get here. The weekend is upon us and we probably won’t see any activity on the courtyard until Monday or possibly after that.

Image: mud pump – click to enlarge.

Tomorrow, however, the agent for the security door company will visit to measure the doors and show samples of screens and finishes. We will likely order the doors tomorrow, barring any unforeseen glitches, and make the first security door milestone.