or Adventures in Home Repair;
or How I Spent My Sunday.
For reasons best left unspecified, I found myself in need of a new exterior door – a replacement for the one that keeps my utility room from being a part of the outdoors. Last weekend, I went out to the local home improvement store and after spending two hours, I realized that I couldn’t simply replace the door, but instead, had to replace the entire door, prehung in its frame.
So, I bought the door-in-frame, hauled it out to my car only to realize that I had forgotten a certain problem of logistics. While a door slab will fit in my hatchback, a whole door in its frame, most certainly will not. So, I haul the frame back into the Lowes and ask if they can hold it for me. Nope. Well, not currently. If I *returned* the frame and then re-purchased it, *then* they could hold it. Fine. Done.
Fast-forward to yesterday. I borrow a neighbor’s truck (noon) and make the 10+ mile drive back out to the Lowes. Pick up the door, drive back, unload and return the truck (1pm). I start removing the old door, pulling out the frame and leaving it as a rough cutout (2:30pm). Took a break to avoid completely dehydrating and got back to work (3pm). At this point, I realized that because of the thickness of the logs (or in the utility room, the log siding), the last door had actually been installed 2″ out of the rough and was actually sitting on the porch. Unfortunately, that means that there was actually extra header between the frame and the rough since the porch sits an inch lower than the subfloor. To fix that, I nailed down some extra board so the door would sit on the subfloor and be flush with the interior walls. Next step – find my caulk. Oops – none in the house. Run up to the nearest hardware store, about 8 miles, and buy some caulk (4:00pm).
Caulked the rough and set the door up. Unfortunately, the door installation instructions were a little opaque and I couldn’t figure out where to go next. Everytime I opened the door or even stopped holding it, the door would start falling. Google to the rescue! Following the online instructions, I shimmed the door into place, leveled it and got everything nailed into place (5pm). Grab the old deadbolt and doorknob and installed them (5:30pm) and, with K’s help, cleaned up – 5:50pm.
All in all, a perfectly terrible way to spend a Sunday. And I still need to finish insulating the door, staining it and putting the moulding back together. Whee!