Doors, Drywall, and More - Oh My!

Even though I didn't work as many hours as I had wanted this weekend, I still managed to get a lot done on the houses.

Friday

I decided to stop by another Home Depot on the way home from work to talk to someone who knows about doors. I talked with a gentleman who gave me some pointers on what to do (and not to do) to get the interior doors up. He said to buy a cheap router and told me to use a certain bit to make the bracket moulding. He also gave me a kit that helps in creating the door bracket moulding. My FIL has a router, so I just bought the bit and the moulding kit. I also bought one of the five remaining doors I would need for the house.

When I got to the house, I started in on the first door (MAster Bathroom - the one I started chiseling). Wow, what a difference. I made the two other mouldings in a matter of minutes. I screwed the brackets on, and, to my surprise, the door was hung. However, when I went to shut it, it wouldn't shut all the way - the door was hitting the door jam. Great. After analyzing it for a few minutes, I realized I didn't make the moulding wide enough. I started on the next door (Bathroom #2), and within 10-15 mins, I had the door completed. It not only hung correctly, too, but it also shut perfectly. I had some other side projects I needed to finish as well, so I did them. My first priority Saturday would be to take down the first door and extend the mouldings a tad bit.

Saturday

One of the things the renters told me the day before they moved was that their lawn mower had broke and the grass in the back was getting high. I had told them not too worry about it that I was going to probably mow and weed eat again anyway. Well, I decided Saturday morning that I was going to mow and weed eat BOTH houses before I do anything else to get it out of the way. With winter coming up, I wouldn't need to mow or weed eat either house until the spring again, anyway.

Unfortunately, I forgot my wife had an appointment Saturday morning, so my plans were delayed. After that and doing some other things around our house, I finally got to House #1 around 1:30pm. The lot is almost 1/3 acre, so it took me a good while to mow and weed eat. There were also a lot of peanuts (the ones used for packing - not the edible kind) on the front lawn. I figured it was due to the renters moving. It took me a good 10-15 mins. to get all that cleaned up as well. So, House #1 was done and it looked great. I then drove to House #2 to start the projects there. I started there by mowing and weed eating as well. If you recall, the house next door to House #2 was in a state of preforeclosure when I got this house. I tried contacting the owner, but I could never reach her. Well, the place is a complete shambles now - the lawn is growing wildly, there's junk in the backyard, etc. So, when I mowed and weed eated House #2, I went ahead and did some yard work to the house next door as well. Not a whole lot, but just enough so it didn't look like an eyesore as much (people don't want to live next to an eyesore).

Next, I took down the first door I hung, extended the moulding a tad, rehung it, and it works perfectly. I tell you, each time I buy one of these houses and fix it up, I learn a LOT about being a handyman. I can now say I can put up prebored 6-panel interior doors. LOL!

Having put up two doors, I was all excited. I still had at least five more to hang (master bedroom, bedroom #1 main and closet, and bedroom #2 main and closet). There is also the utility door and the entry coat closet door, but I think I'll just leave them as is. They are in good shape, so replacing them would only be for cosmetic reasons. I may replace the entry coat closet door, but only because it's right there in the entry when people first walk into the house, but I doubt it. Anyway, I was on a roll and wanted to hang up some more doors. So I headed to the local Home Depot to pick up 4/30" doors and 1/32" door. I also had to pick up some spray-on spackle for the drywall repairs and a few other supplies. Lo-and-behold, I get there and can't find any 30" doors! I find the guy working the door department and he does some checking for me. He says the computer says they have 25/30" doors! but he can't even find them. He even goes in the back and says they are nowhere to be found. Great. I pick up a 32" door and leave the store an unhappy customer.

I get back to the house and hang the 32" door and finish a couple of other projects. It's still early ~7pm, but I just don't feel like working anymore and head home for the day.

Sunday

I get another late start (~2pm) on the house due to personal commitments. Before going to House #2, I head the opposite direction to pick up 4/30" doors at Lowes. Thankfully, they have them. I then head to House #2 and begin my day. I manage to rout the bracket mouldings on all four doors, screw in the brackets, hang them, and reinsert the door knobs on all four doors in almost no time. (Handymen of the world, look out!) I then start tackling the drywall repairs. The night before, I had sanded off the paint and bad spackle job on the two smaller repair jobs to do them over. I also respackled them and the large 3'x4' drywall section. Now came time to test how well I did by painting the areas. I admit they weren't the best drywall repairs ever done, but I was quite pleased by the results. If you look at the areas directly, you can probably tell there was work done, but it's a whole lot better than what they looked like before. I just wish I had taken "before" pictures to show what the original jobs looked like.

Another thing I did on Sunday was hose off the garage, driveway, porch, and the sidewalk leading from the driveway to the porch. When I mowed on Saturday, there was gras all over the driveway. Also, I did all the routing of the doors in the garage, so there was a lot of sawdust on the garage floor. And, the ants I killed early on still had the mounds sitting there, so I housed them off as well. When all was washed off, it looked a lot better.

Like the night befire, I just got to a point where I didn't feel like doing much else (it was probably my body's way of telling me to slow down a bit). So, around 6pm, I started closing shop. Right before I left, I filled the bathtub up with about 6" of water and poured in some of the Simple Green cleanser I bought earlier in the week. I then took down the two blinds in the dining room and dipped them vigorously in the water mixture for about two minutes each. They came out looking spotless. After shaking as much water off them as I could, I rehung them to dry further. Then I left.

To do's

It now appears the worst and heaviest rehab work is behind me. Now, my biggest feat will be cleaning. I still need to take all the light fixtures down and clean them, clean all the blinds, clean all the floors, and scrub both bathrooms, kitchen, breakfast, and entry. I am still undecided on the carpet. It's a complete mess right now with all the back-n-forth work I've done, so it's hard to tell in what condition it's in. I heard one guy say he buys discontinued carpet at Lowes for 45-50 cents per sq. ft., so that's an option to consider. I roughly estimated the carpet in the house to be around 850-1,000 sq. ft., so that's be about $380-550. I read different articles on how to replace carpet, and although it sounds easy, it may just be too much for me to do. Hanging doors is one thing - laying carpet is quite another.