Last summer the family got together down in Kentucky, like we do every summer, to hang out for a long weekend at my parents home.  Although many times this includes some sort of project, like clearing trees and burning them up in a huge bonfire, I’ve rarely used these opportunities to recruit for work on Mavis, the 1972 Ford Maverick I’m restoring with my Pop.

This last visit though I asked the help of my brothers to put the doors back on. (You may have noticed said doors were missing on our last successful test drive.) Of course Mat and Dan had no issue whatsoever with this and were more than happy to help.  I mean, Mat and his wife Stacy volunteer to pick up garbage on the side of the road for God’s sake. Dan teaches high school art, which can’t be easy, and like Mat, is one of the nicest humans you’ll ever meet.  In fact, here’s Dan’s general attitude about giving a helping hand. (Click image if not playing.)

I’m serious….this is Dan.

Although it sounds pretty straight forward, installing car doors from the 70’s is tricky. First, they are HEAVY as hell, and secondly, they need to be balanced just so to ensure that solid car door closure sound. It took Pop, my brothers, and hubby Mike’s help to make this happen. Momma supervised, nephew and brother-in-law documented, and you can see here how hard I worked.

Look at these fantastic men in my life! I am truly a lucky gal. Yes, there is a lot of tie-dye going on. That was the weekend art project led by Dan. “The Chambers like a project”, as Mike would say.

It was quite an ordeal, but we got both doors on and aligned correctly. But, here’s the rub. We had painted the doors a couple years back and not being full-on professionals, Pop and I left a lot of paint floating in the air. We had to purchase more for the body, a full year after the doors were painted, and at that point the original source we got the paint from was closed. So, although it’s technically the same formula, the greens turned out slightly different.

This is not something I’m going to fix. I’m going to live with it. Not everything can be or has to be perfect and I’m ok with that. Ask me at the beginning of this project, and I would be stripping those doors and hunting down the perfect color match. I’ve realized throughout this adventure with Pop that it’s not about the perfect outcome, it’s about the journey. I’m so proud of our paint job. As mismatched and drippy as it is, it’s pretty damn good for this self-taught father/daughter team.

Besides the doors, we’ve been able to get almost all of the interior back in and finally get to see those gorgeous seats back where they belong.

We also got the front fenders on and aligned, the hood installed, front and back bumpers and lights on and working, chrome trim on, back fly windows installed, interior of doors done and interior lights working. It was a huge push and we are so close to completion. If you can believe it, I’ve got a ONE WAY plane ticket to Kentucky for next month. If all goes well, I’ll be driving Mavis home to Denver!

I love these hippies!