Winter ideal for homeowners to plan renovations
Bitter cold winter days are for dreaming: About warm afternoons on a new deck, a warm house with new storm doors, and an even warmer house with a new wood stove.
When snow shoveling is done and it’s too cold to play in the drifts, we have a little extra time for dreaming and planning.
That’s what we did the past two weekends. Our farm daughter and I did a little tourist-type travel in Amish country, spending quality time and some of our paychecks at Keim Lumber in Charm before stopping at Coalway of Charm and Erb’s Stove Center between Berlin and Walnut Creek.
Lucky for us, Keim is open only until noon on Saturdays; otherwise, I could spend the entire day and all of my paycheck there. It’s a renovator’s dream — a candy store for the handyman in search of a new tool, the perfect shade of paint, a specific type of lumber milled just so, or just the right nail, screw or bolt.
The best thing about Keim is that the people working there have used the tools, the lumber, the nails and the paint. They know their stuff because they have lived it.
The only thing that rivals the sheer volume of hardware in the massive store — not to mention the many outbuildings filled with building materials — is the number of bearded sales associates eager to answer questions and offer advice.
Our main mission was to inspect and test storm doors for our daughter’s house. The current storm doors are 30 or 40 years old. They were decent doors in the day, but wow, storm door designs have improved immensely. Some are now so substantial — and expensive — that they could stand as the one and only door in the right circumstances.
We are particularly interested in Provia doors, which are manufactured by local residents in nearby Sugarcreek and have a reputation for high quality. We learned that the company, which is located in a massive and growing facility on Route 39 just west of Sugarcreek, also sells windows, siding, roofing and architectural stone. (Finding all of those bonus offerings was a tempting distraction, but we picked up some literature on them and put them on the list for a future day of dreaming.)
The Provia showroom was closed on the Saturday we stopped by, but as luck would have it, Keim is a Provia dealer, and we had the opportunity there to test-drive some of the storm doors.
Our daughter is looking for an insulated door with a built-in screen — one that unrolls into place when the storm window is lowered and rolls back into a tight, enclosed space at the top of the door when the storm window is raised back into place.
Her older sister installed two of those in her house and we were all impressed — both with the doors and with our daughter’s bold adventure in storm
door installation. She grew tired of the old doors and wanted something her pets couldn’t leap up and claw to pieces. She measured the openings, bought the doors, installed them and proudly sent photos of her handiwork. (No one was prouder than her dad, let me tell you.)
It’s too cold to switch out the storm doors at this point. The old doors are doing OK, and we have a little more homework to do. By the time it warms up, we’ll have a plan and we will be ready to move forward with the perfect doors for a century-old farmhouse.
If you’re looking to do a little wintertime dreaming about renovation, remodeling or that new deck or patio, the Spring Dispatch Home & Garden Show is a great place to get ideas and talk with people who know their stuff. (There are so many vendors of windows and doors on the list for this show that I might have to visit more than once.)
The show runs Feb. 19-27 in the Bricker and Celeste buildings at the Ohio State Fairgrounds, Interstate 71 and East 17th Avenue. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.
Adult admission is $8, and tickets can be purchased online or at the door. If you stop by a Greater Columbus Lowe’s store before the show, you can pick up coupons
for $5 off weekday admission or $3 off a weekend ticket. The coupons are good only for tickets purchased at the door.
Alan D. Miller is a former Dispatch editor who teaches journalism at Denison University and writes about old house repair and historic preservation based on personal experiences and questions from readers. youroldhouse1@gmail.com @youroldhouse