Unexpected project
While she was showing me around her place, my friend Sheryl told me a story about an emergency remodel of her bathroom and said "It's not the cost that's so bad, it's the timing. These things can strike without warning."
Josh recommended I get started on a project right away, just to get my feet wet and to start making my mark in the house. I thought this was a great idea, so I had planned to spend this weekend, my first weekend in the house, getting started on that. I decided to paint the living and dining rooms, which are this horrible mauve color:
The dining room from the living room
The living room
They even painted all of the moldings mauve. The heating vents and electrical sockets were not spared either. Anyway, I had intended to go to Home Depot to pick up a few basic things, and then off to Queen Anne & Magnolia Paint to get some samples and start choosing colors in earnest.
A couple of guys from 1-800-GOT-JUNK were scheduled to arrive at 8:30am on Saturday to remove an ancient upright freezer and metal desk that the previous homeowners had neglected to get rid of. My real estate agent had arranged for this, and all I had to do was let them in. They showed up right on time and went into the basement. They blanched at the freezer, which really is huge, and said "Are you sure that thing will fit through the door?"
"It got in, didn't it?" I helpfully replied.
They took a few measurements and found that if they removed the freezer door, it would fit through the basement door with a tiny amount of clearance, but fit it would. It was then that one of them noticed the large pipe running down the back of the freezer with a three-inch-thick crust of ice on it. Neither of them wanted to chip the ice off, lest he be sprayed in the face with deadly freon. I wanted even less for them to leave without the freezer.
Once-icy pipe
What came off
OK, no more excuses! Get this godforsaken freezer the hell out of my house!
They tried to take the door off as specified by the instructions on the side of the freezer and eventually gave up on that and just started hammering away at the hinge, eventually breaking the door off. They loaded the freezer onto a dolly and wheeled it toward the door, and naturally, it wouldn't fit.
The junk guys try to get the freezer out the door
Apparently, there just wasn't enough clearance with the door still on the hinges, so that had to come off. As with every other piece of hardware in this house, the hinge was heavily painted over, so we had to bang on it a bit to get the hinge unstuck. As we tried to lift the door off, a fair bit of the door frame snapped off. Yes, ladies and germs, one of the jambs in my door frame was rotten. We took the hinges off at the frame, moved the door out of the way, and they evacuated the freezer. I signed something, the junk guys wished me good luck, and then they evacuated themselves, too.
The rotted and cracked door frame
So there I was. Just past nine in the morning, not a full week spent in my house yet, and I have no basement door. I figured I had better take some measurements, but somewhere along the line, my measuring tape disappeared. I went to the local hardware store and picked up a new tape, some safety glasses, and a pry bar.
I ran back to the house, measured all of the dimensions of the door and its frame, and went off to Home Depot. The guy in the door department asked me if it was a nice door. "No, it's pretty old and beat up," I said. "Just buy a new prehung door, then," he told me. He told me it would be a lot easier to remove an old door frame with a sawzall. I have been looking for any reason to buy a sawzall for a while now, so I put one in the cart. I also got a few other things on my list: a circular saw (tired of waiting for the class saws), a screw finder, tool belt, a couple cleaning products, basically a lot of minor things. I did not, however, buy a door, because I really didn't have any way to get it home. I still don't have roof runners for my car.
I took my spoils home and called Josh, who has a station wagon with a roof rack. He said Megan had the car, but she'd be back in a bit, so I went over to their place to hang out. She returned soon and the three of us went back to Home Depot, where I bought a door and a doorknob/deadbolt kit. We brought all that and an old dresser they had for me to my house and went out for dinner. I cannot overemphasize how humped I would be in this whole moving and homeownership endeavor if not for the generosity of Josh and Megan.
I realized at the table that it was getting pretty dark outside, and I didn't have a work light, so I ran a few blocks to the local hardware store, getting there ten minutes before closing. Further increasing the damage for the day, I picked up a work light, a Mag-Lite (I lose one every time I move and was down to zero), and a four-foot level. We finished dinner and retreated to my house, where Megan decided there wasn't much to do and went home. We opened up the box the work light came in and found that it had a 2 foot cord. No, I didn't have any extension cords.
So we went to Fred Meyer up in Greenwood for two 50' extension cords and something very important.
Finally, we returned to the house to start sawzalling and prying off the door frame. Apparently the door frame predated the new shingle siding on the house, because we broke a bunch of shingles in the process. Finally, the door frame was out of the way and we could install the new door!
The door doesn't fit
The sides of the old door frame ran all the way down to the floor, on either side of that concrete step. My new prehung door has a threshhold on the bottom and therefore sat on top of the step, four inches higher than it should have been. Back to Home Depot for more advice.
We arrived at Home Depot at 9:01pm, the store having just closed. I dropped Josh off at his house and returned home alone to drown my sorrows in PlayStation crime.
Join us tomorrow for our next exciting episode of "The Door That Wouldn't Fit!"
Josh recommended I get started on a project right away, just to get my feet wet and to start making my mark in the house. I thought this was a great idea, so I had planned to spend this weekend, my first weekend in the house, getting started on that. I decided to paint the living and dining rooms, which are this horrible mauve color:
The dining room from the living room
The living room
They even painted all of the moldings mauve. The heating vents and electrical sockets were not spared either. Anyway, I had intended to go to Home Depot to pick up a few basic things, and then off to Queen Anne & Magnolia Paint to get some samples and start choosing colors in earnest.
A couple of guys from 1-800-GOT-JUNK were scheduled to arrive at 8:30am on Saturday to remove an ancient upright freezer and metal desk that the previous homeowners had neglected to get rid of. My real estate agent had arranged for this, and all I had to do was let them in. They showed up right on time and went into the basement. They blanched at the freezer, which really is huge, and said "Are you sure that thing will fit through the door?"
"It got in, didn't it?" I helpfully replied.
They took a few measurements and found that if they removed the freezer door, it would fit through the basement door with a tiny amount of clearance, but fit it would. It was then that one of them noticed the large pipe running down the back of the freezer with a three-inch-thick crust of ice on it. Neither of them wanted to chip the ice off, lest he be sprayed in the face with deadly freon. I wanted even less for them to leave without the freezer.
Once-icy pipe
What came off
OK, no more excuses! Get this godforsaken freezer the hell out of my house!
They tried to take the door off as specified by the instructions on the side of the freezer and eventually gave up on that and just started hammering away at the hinge, eventually breaking the door off. They loaded the freezer onto a dolly and wheeled it toward the door, and naturally, it wouldn't fit.
The junk guys try to get the freezer out the door
Apparently, there just wasn't enough clearance with the door still on the hinges, so that had to come off. As with every other piece of hardware in this house, the hinge was heavily painted over, so we had to bang on it a bit to get the hinge unstuck. As we tried to lift the door off, a fair bit of the door frame snapped off. Yes, ladies and germs, one of the jambs in my door frame was rotten. We took the hinges off at the frame, moved the door out of the way, and they evacuated the freezer. I signed something, the junk guys wished me good luck, and then they evacuated themselves, too.
The rotted and cracked door frame
So there I was. Just past nine in the morning, not a full week spent in my house yet, and I have no basement door. I figured I had better take some measurements, but somewhere along the line, my measuring tape disappeared. I went to the local hardware store and picked up a new tape, some safety glasses, and a pry bar.
I ran back to the house, measured all of the dimensions of the door and its frame, and went off to Home Depot. The guy in the door department asked me if it was a nice door. "No, it's pretty old and beat up," I said. "Just buy a new prehung door, then," he told me. He told me it would be a lot easier to remove an old door frame with a sawzall. I have been looking for any reason to buy a sawzall for a while now, so I put one in the cart. I also got a few other things on my list: a circular saw (tired of waiting for the class saws), a screw finder, tool belt, a couple cleaning products, basically a lot of minor things. I did not, however, buy a door, because I really didn't have any way to get it home. I still don't have roof runners for my car.
I took my spoils home and called Josh, who has a station wagon with a roof rack. He said Megan had the car, but she'd be back in a bit, so I went over to their place to hang out. She returned soon and the three of us went back to Home Depot, where I bought a door and a doorknob/deadbolt kit. We brought all that and an old dresser they had for me to my house and went out for dinner. I cannot overemphasize how humped I would be in this whole moving and homeownership endeavor if not for the generosity of Josh and Megan.
I realized at the table that it was getting pretty dark outside, and I didn't have a work light, so I ran a few blocks to the local hardware store, getting there ten minutes before closing. Further increasing the damage for the day, I picked up a work light, a Mag-Lite (I lose one every time I move and was down to zero), and a four-foot level. We finished dinner and retreated to my house, where Megan decided there wasn't much to do and went home. We opened up the box the work light came in and found that it had a 2 foot cord. No, I didn't have any extension cords.
So we went to Fred Meyer up in Greenwood for two 50' extension cords and something very important.
Finally, we returned to the house to start sawzalling and prying off the door frame. Apparently the door frame predated the new shingle siding on the house, because we broke a bunch of shingles in the process. Finally, the door frame was out of the way and we could install the new door!
The door doesn't fit
The sides of the old door frame ran all the way down to the floor, on either side of that concrete step. My new prehung door has a threshhold on the bottom and therefore sat on top of the step, four inches higher than it should have been. Back to Home Depot for more advice.
We arrived at Home Depot at 9:01pm, the store having just closed. I dropped Josh off at his house and returned home alone to drown my sorrows in PlayStation crime.
Join us tomorrow for our next exciting episode of "The Door That Wouldn't Fit!"
posted by Ficus at 11:02 AM
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