Monday, May 25, 2009

I replaced the screen door on the back porch today

We've been making do with an old, bare aluminum thing that I dug out of the neighbor's garbage. It was the right width but the wrong height, so I had to go buy a metal cutting disk for my circular saw and adjust it. But it's been going to hell for the last couple years, since you-know-who couldn't get it open one day and kicked the hell out of it. Then the daughter followed that example after I fixed it that time. Just so you know, I never did get the lock to work right. I could get it open... but I have seventeen and a half inch biceps.

Anyway, Menard's had a door that sounded good to the shopper-lady on sale for $99. Naturally, they were out by the time we got there, so we offered to take the floor model off their hands. Since it didn't have any hinges or the latch and they considered it a little dinged up, they gave it to us for fifteen bucks. The missing hardware was about another fifteen.

Well, this one is the right height for the doorway, but it's two inches wider. So I had to scab a new frame on top of the old one. I got the happy child to help me prime it. We were going to paint it together too, but as we were getting all ready to do it, I found out I'd grabbed a can of red off the shelf, instead of white. Boy, did I wish I could think of a way to make that work. But I couldn't, so I just nailed it on, hung the door and we'll paint it later.

I'd show you a picture, but the new door makes the rest of the porch look crappier. So now I'll have to buy enough paint to do the whole thing.

See: the benefits of bitching about your wife. [I won't talk about the little scene we had this morning. Really it was over too fast to make much of a story, but I won.] It loosens up the blockage so you can get things done.

5 comments:

Tef said...

Wonder: What is the probability of all of that happening?

Al said...

Pretty good, really. 60/40 or so, but some things could have happened that might have stopped me.

Tef said...

Winning an argument with the wife, getting a replacement door for a song, finding the missing bits for another song,...

You're on a roll, dude. Did you buy lottery tickets yet?

Al said...

It sounds so much more dramatic when you put it that way.

LibertyBob said...

If you aren't careful, you'll end up with a whole new house.