Doors Suck
If you’re thinking about replacing a door yourself, don’t. Of all the jobs I’ve done, nothing is as frusturating as putting a new door into an existing frame. At first glance it seems so simple… remove the door, use it as a template for the new door and hinges, rout out or chisel away to install the new hinges, hang the door where it was.
Here’s realty… you don’t have a router or didn’t want to spend $30 for the correct bit. You instead get a hinge template and chisel away. Not only does this take WAY longer than you thought it would, but the chance of chiseling away the proper DEPTH is near impossible. But lets say after 30-60 minutes of chiseling, you get it darn close and you’re pretty proud of yourself. Don’t be.
You carry the door to the exisiting frame, hoping you measured correctly and the hinges line up with the old frame. Amazing, they do! You then manage to find something about an inch high to balance your door on while attempting to line up the hinges…so much fun. Eventually you get it, and the door is on. You’re done! Yeah, right.
You go to close the door, and thud… it’s not closing… why? Well, don’t worry, it could only be about 5 different things. Maybe you didn’t notice the prevous door had been cut down to fit the opening, maybe your hinges are too deep or slightly crooked, maybe the previous hinges had cardboard behind them to offset a problem with the frame, maybe the hinges aren’t too deep but too far to the right or left by a millimeter, maybe your hinge screws are slightly loose, maybe the house is crooked. At this point you realize that the job is just beginning.
But you’re not detoured, you quicky realize the door is too wide. You get the drill, take the door off the frame, carry the door back to your work area, and get out the circular saw and do your best to cut a perfectly straight strip of door off. Simple! Ha! Chances are, it’s not so straight, but oh well, it’s close enough. So you lug the door back to where it goes, put the door back on, and wahla!…it still doesn’t close all the way! How could that be? Well, it could ‘be’ a lot of things as I just mentioned.
So you go down the list…and think it must be the hinges aren’t aligned correctly. You’re not sure why as you put them on exactly like the old door, but are determined to tweak them until they are just right to get the door to close. So you try everything, you make hinges less deep with cardboard, more deep with the chisel, move them left, move them right, move one hinge in, one hidge out… you try a zillion differnt combinations of changes until finally it fits….ALMOST! Well, it does close, but it just doesn’t seem right…. but you don’t care, because after 5 hours, you know this is the closest you’re gonna get. Not to mention, your door looks a mess because of all the cutting and chiseling, and fiqure it can’t take anymore ‘tweaking’.
At least it kind of works, and you’re done. Not quite. Now your wife comes to see the pretty new door, and the first things out of her mouth are… “ Why is the wood around the hinges all torn up? Why does the cut you made on the side of the door not seem straight? Why doesn’t the door close easily?”
You then realize you did a crap job, and have to start all over… or hire somebody. You seriously consider commiting hari-kari on your chisel. Doors suck.
Removing the Kitchen Soffit
- Kitchen Soffit Halfway Out
Well, after painting the kiitchen soffit six times, I finally gave up and just started tearing it out. Like usual, this just created another huge project I really don’t feel like doing. You’ll notice from the pic I’m only half way through removal and I’ve already exposed can light wiring and range hood venting issues. Hoping there isn’t another surprise over the fridge. Oh, did I mention, there was a HUGE old bees nest in the soffit? I hate houses.
Kitchen Soffit
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