The Architrave and I

"Hmmm ....so ...hmmmm...OK now ," his tone thoughtful and contemplating .He drew a couple of lines on the already scribbled plane and looked up ."That will be an architrave of 18 mm thickness."and there I was beside him ...trying to look reasonably intelligent nodding wisely peering at the paper which sported lines and squiggles which to me resembled hieroglyphics. An Architrave ...Oh alright (Gosh was that English, Greek or latin ?) Help .Google !.

And then the trail of the Architrave began ....Google said it was a frame for the door ( Was that it? ..Did it have to be called an architrave ?Couldn't it have been called a frame in simple English .Well....work was work and architrave it had to be . I drafted the architrave as I thought it should be .He (my team leader ) goggled at the drawing and was silent for a couple of suspense filled moments. Then in an almost mournful tone he drawled (if you could drawl in a mournful tone ...),"Madam,How do you plan to fix this on the wall ? Where are the working details ?,I need a working drawing Madam ."

(Fix it ? wasn’t that the carpenters job?Iwas told that all an interior designer had to do was visualise the designs and feel smug .The nitty gritty of bolting and riveting was for the mortals who called themselves carpenters and fabricators .Hmmmm...Guess i was wrong)

With a sigh he picked up a sheet and drew some lines across and some parallel and marked out some dimensions.With a pencil he pointed to the lines and said in a resigned voice ,"See this is the wall and this line here is the plaster line ,then you have the frame work and then the architrave ."

(For the life of me I could n't relate it to any thing that resembled the picture of an architrave shown in the search engine .Well, never one to give up ..I faithfully copied the lines on to the screen and gave it some final touches of some extra lines and took a print out .

His reaction was almost painful to watch,"Madam ...he sounded as if in some agony ...where are the spacers ,why havent you shown the 12mm ply backing and what is the thickness of the veneer and what is the veneer that you are proposing to use "

Spacers?,veneer?ply backing ?..wasnt it supposed to be just an architrave ?Well deciding to take the bull by its horns ...I expressed my ignorance on constructing an Architrave..... and it started all over again

This time I knew i had got it right .(It was my seventh attempt ...).With a sigh of an achievement I pushed the printed sheeted towards him .An expression of pure agony crossed his face ...,."Madam ...how can you see the architrave when i am cutting a section in the wall like this ."

I saw my career as an interior designer crumbling like the wall he had just cut . I wanted to shout ",Who would cut a wall of his own house to check how it was made ?"

And this was just a beginning ,....suffice to say that I conquered the architrave in my 12 th attempt .and now...... its an ss finished Handrail of 50 mm dia fixed to ss uprights with 10mm glass.