It is not uncommon to find extremely ornate doors on churches, cathedrals, museums, and castles throughout the world, but we found that in India it was common to see them on homes of everyday people. They are often carved with Hindu figures and with meaningful stories. We had visited the home of a friend while were in Chennai and their door had intricate carvings of Ganesh, the Hindu god with the head of an elephant. We didn’t take any pictures of their door out of respect for them. We do think that it was great to see that the people of India made sure to reuse doors when older buildings were being taken door to make way for new buildings.

During our time in Chennai several years ago, we had come across a store that sold unique antiques. One of the most unusual items that we came across were tables that had been made out of some of the antique doors. We came extremely close to purchasing this particular table seen below and, in hind sight, we regret not making the purchase. The thought of having to pay for shipping ended up discouraging us from making this unique piece of furniture part of our home décor.  Lesson learned, in the future we’re not going to let the logistics and costs of shipping keep us from purchasing something that we truly wanted to purchase.