Giving up and calling in the professionals - why hanging doors is hard!
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Much as I like to pretend that I can do everything round the house on my own, there are things that I know I can’t quite manage. Occasions when it’s better to swallow my pride and call in the experts rather than make a mess of it on my own.
My very first lesson in this came shortly after I first moved into my house. The front door was a bit of a mess. That is to say there was a big hole in the bottom, surrounded by rotten wood, where a previous occupant had apparently tried to kick the door in. Obviously one of the first orders of the day was to replace the front door, as I prefer not to be able to see daylight through doors. Or be able to put my hand through them!
So I went to the reclamation yard and bought a hardwood Victorian door put in its place. I sanded the door down, treated it and painted it. I used a metallic primer, two coats of undercoat and then an enamel wood paint. I was then just about to call a carpenter to hang the door for me, when I was persuaded by my (then) boyfriend that he would be able to hang the door himself. So despite my doubts I let him and his Dad spend 14 hours fiddling around with my front door and the door frame with increasing frustration and 'problem solving'.
When they were finally done, the door was hung - but so badly it made me want to cry. You could see daylight all the way round the door and no amount of draft excluders was going to make it better. Daylight! I suffered all the way through a bitterly cold winter with a badly fitted front door that didn’t keep out the wind or the rain, and the second the relationship was over I posted a job, received two responses, picked the best one, and got myself a pro.
My chosen professional (lovely guy) brought me a new hardwood front door and fitted it in under an hour. An hour! He cut the door furniture (door furniture is stuff like letter boxs, door handles, door numbers etc. Cutting out letter boxes is really tricky, especially in hard wood doors)in for me as well and all that was left for me to do was to paint the door. Finally I have a secure house with a properly fitted, brand new, shiny front door.
By far and away the best $500 I’ve ever spent.
Carpentry Quotes
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