More Choices

Yesterday was a long a day. Lots of travelling; lots of decisions. We had a meeting to choose everything related to our doors, windows, and railings. The French have a word for this category of items: menuiserie.

During our last meeting with the project manager, he stressed the importance of getting this done promptly. And, if obsessively watching Grand Designs over the past few years has taught me anything, it is always the windows that cause delays.

Our visit to the menuiserie supplier took us a bit further afield than usual. After our train trip to Vichy, we picked up a rental car and set out an hour and a half north, just beyond the town of Moulins. The showroom was cleverly custom-built, with the different windows and doors installed around the building so we could see them and try them out. On the factory floor below, they were manufacturing some of the products.

The main decisions about the windows and doors - their size, materials, and positions - were made during the design phase. But that still left plenty of details to sort out on this visit to the menuiserie showroom. Things like handles and locks, colours and styles, whether to automate shutters or not. It was two and a half hours of little decisions.

For most things, we had a small selection of reasonable options to pick from. A handful left us cold. For some of these, the decision to upgrade was easy. For others we couldn’t justify the additional cost - yes those internal doors are nicer, but 400 euros per door nicer? Not really. We have a limited budget, and sometimes we have to compromise.

Waking up this morning, I still feel a bit overwhelmed by all those decisions. And still tired, too. On the table is the pile of brochures we brought back with us, with all our choices circled and noted. At some point (soon) I’m going to look through them and check everything. We have a few days before they place the orders in case we change our minds. I don’t think we will. Our first choices for these things tend to be our final choices. But, it will be reassuring to go over them once more.