We’ve been working fairly diligently to seal up the house for winter, trying to avoid early symptoms of hypothermia while actually INSIDE the house (ahem). We’ve put up LOTS of plastic on the drafty windows, even some on the outside of windows to accommodate indoor cat windowsill-sitting. (We’re such softies!) It's helped quite a bit.
But one thing that’s been stumping me is the silly front door seal. The old one is disintegrating, and it seemed like a fairly obvious fix. Run to the home store, buy something, stick it on and we’re done, right? Nope. I’ve purchased a couple things, and really none would even begin to fit. Puzzling.
WF and the Internets to the rescue! He recently found the perfect thing:
A kerf-fitted compression door set. (say that 10 times fast). Well, of course! I was forgetting to consider the kerf! (!?!?!). I love language and words, but this was a new one to me. From Answers.com:
kerf (kûrf)
n.
1. A groove or notch made by a cutting tool, such as a saw or an ax.
2. The width of a groove made by a cutting tool.
[Middle English, from Old English cyrf, a cutting.]
So, now not only do we have to try to decipher home-improvement projects and the copious inventory of these crazy warehouse stores and their apathetic teenaged employees, but we need to learn Middle English, too. I’ll get right on that.
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2 comments:
Blog that kerf!
What? It's a perfectly cromulent word...
Middle English, huh? Maybe that's why I knew the word. I was once upon a time married into a Newfoundland family. The idiom in Nfld has a lot of strange words in it. After ten years "down East" on the "rock", I guess I learned some. some wunnerful gran', whah?
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