The Installation of a Door

Last night, we had to install a door at my parent’s house. My little sister is coming to live with us for a while, and with her comes 2 cats and a dog. Since we have Cookie, I told her the dog was ok to live with us (so long as she’s house trained, and won’t make messes) but the cats were a no-go. No matter what. I don’t want cats in my house, I hate cats, and I hate the messes and smell of them. So to compromise, my parents very graciously will take the cats in their place for the next few months, but we needed to install a door leading to the basement, to keep them down there. We ran to the local Home Depot, bought a simple, plain door, and went over to the folks’. We brought the door down there, put it up to compare, and...it wasn’t the right size. It was 1/8 inch too small on the top, the perfect size in the middle, and 1/4 inch too small on the bottom. GRRR! So we went back to the Depot, had them shave a quarter inch off the whole thing (which was a fight in itself, we had to go to a few departments to get the help we needed) and tried again. This time, the door fit, and after chipping off the places for the hinges, we got the door hung, we put in a doorknob, and everything was peachy. The door shut, it opened, and everything was fine, so we left it. Thank goodness everything ended up okay...I’m definitely not having cats in my house.

Just Installed a Doorknob…No Big Deal

Yesterday, I was thinking to myself that it might be a good idea to have my door locked all the time when I’m home. (Well, when I’m home alone.) The problem is, my doorknob sticks. The little bolt deal (yup, this is the language you’ll get here) often doesn’t retract out of the door, so when it closes, nothing catches, so it can swing back open. I decided to put an end to this, and went and bought a new doorknob. I found a darker one – I don’t like gold, and while silver is ok, I like the “oil-rubbed bronze” look, so I went with that. I bought it, and came home, ready to put it together.

I had PJ help me on this. We took apart the old doorknob, and got to work. It took some finagling, and I was worried at points that it wouldn’t work out, but finally, after a lot of work, it came together, it closed, locked, and opened again. I tested the keys to make sure they worked, and yay! They did! So I stepped back to admire what it ended up looking like.

Nice, eh? You can see where the original doorknob must have been a hundred years ago (It certainly wasn’t that type of doorknob when we moved in…) but I’m not itching to get a door, so I’m ok for now. At least I got this one in and didn’t have to bring it back or anything!