Our story so far: We were attending to myriad small tasks in our church conversion project.

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Like so many other elements of house construction, doors do not come complete.

Take the fireplace, for instance. We bought a fireplace, really just the firebox. We also needed to purchase stone for the chase. And a hearth. And a mantelpiece.

Or a shower. Once you find a shower head, you also need the handle. And the trim parts.

Find cabinets you love, and you still must invest in hardware.

So it is with doors. Our front doors were a steal on Craig’s List, but they came without door knobs. Or locks.

The options available at the Big Box home improvement store were too mass-market for our distinctive castle doors. So Tyler did what he does best and took to eBay, where he found wrought iron hasps and handles.

When my dad, an accomplished carpenter who wasn’t afraid to work with expensive pieces of wood, paid us a visit and noticed we hadn’t yet installed knobs on our doors, he remarked, “Better measure six times and cut once on that project.” Our impressive doors were heavy solid wood; Tyler had only one chance to get the handles right.

But we couldn’t continue to open the doors with the tiny handles for the speak-easy portals as we took to doing early on, so Tyler did what he had to with his chance and installed the distinctive handles and locks. Cutting once.

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Tomorrow: How to choose a backsplash. Read about it here.