A bathroom cabinet door after the humidity
Bathrooms are where wood goes to learn grudges,, and I do not mean that as a joke against bathrooms. A bathroom has steam, towels, a fan that somebody forgets to turn on, and one little cabinet door getting damp every morning until it decides it is no longer part of the same furniture.
I remembered this one because my own plane was in the wrong drawer today. Not a big plane. The small one. A tool can be small and still make you feel like you are about to correct a courthouse. That brought back a bathroom cabinet door I worked on after a rainy week when everything in the house felt a little swollen and private.
The client said it used to shut fine and then all of a sudden it was fighting her. I said wood does not do all of a sudden. Wood does slowly,, and then lets you notice late. She stood in the doorway with wet hair, not dripping exactly, but enough that I could tell the room had been holding water in the air like gossip.
The door was rubbing on the top corner. Not much. People want a dramatic problem because then they can point at it and say there it is. This was a hair of wood, which is worse socially because you have to explain a hair of wood without sounding like you came over to measure feelings.
I took the door off and set it on a towel because I am not an animal. Shaved a little from the edge. Checked it. Shaved a little less than my hand wanted to. That is important. The hand gets proud and takes too much,, and then the gap sits there forever telling everybody what you did.
She asked if humidity could really make that happen. I said yes. Houses breathe badly when people close the door and make weather in one room. She laughed and said she guessed she had made weather. I said I am not judging the weather, just the hinge side.
When it shut right, it made that soft wooden click that tells you the argument is over. I told her to use the fan a little longer after showers. Not because I care about fans as a lifestyle. Because wood remembers more than people think and it will bring the problem back if you invite it.
Later I wrote the size down on the back of an envelope because I thought I might need it again. Then I lost the envelope, which proves the cabinet was not the only thing in that room with moisture problems. Paper curls up too,, and then a man is left trusting memory, which is not a hardware store.
The part I keep remembering is not the shaving. It is how she kept opening and closing it after, quiet, like she did not want to scare the fix away. I understood that. Some fixes feel temporary until they survive a few normal days. I told her if it swelled again after another wet week, do not PANIC and start sanding like a raccoon. Call it what it is first. A door getting too proud in damp weather.
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