For the first time with this house, I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I still have several more projects ahead, but the worst is behind me, I believe.
Painting
I finished painting last night - well, almost. I still need to paint the two small walls where the 3rd drywall repair is located, but that should only take about 30 seconds to do. The master bath really took longer than I expected, because I had to manuever around so many things. The paint dried the same as the bucket before, which was a big relief, too.
Door Situation
I stopped by Lowes on my way home from work and looked at their doors. They had the right size doors without the hardware, which was exactly what I wanted. So, when I finished painting, I ran by teh local Home Depot and checked their inventory again. Sure enough, I didn't look at everything the first time as they had the correct doors, too. I was pickingup two of the 24" doors when an employee asked me for help. We chatted a little and he told me that I'd need to rout the area on the doors where the brackets go. Great. He said instead of buying a router, he suggested a tool that you just pound into the door and it will make the necessary groove. You then just chisel out the wood and your done. So, I took his advice and went back to the house. HAHAHA! Of course, it didn't work for me. It took me about 30 mins to actually make the groove for ONE bracket on the door using this guy's advice. Even then, the groove needed to be sanded down as the chisel left it pretty rough. time to take back the stuff and get a router. I'm just happy that I found the right doors.
Clean Up
I've been avoiding cleaning up messes I make, so when I was at HD picking up the doors, I also picked up a box of construction bags. One of the things I did last night was clean up a lot of the mess. I started using one corner in the dining room as the "heap pile", and after I cleaned it up and some other areas, the place started looking a lot better. I also bought a nice sponge and some of that Simply Green cleaner. I also began cleaning the trim and door frames as well as the linoleum tile in the kitchen, entry, and bathrooms. That made a huge difference as well.
Other
Several other things I did last night were:
1. Caulk all the noticeable gaps in the baseboard and door frames.
2. Use some "liquid nails" to glue down the linoleum in the kitchen where it was beginning to lip up.
3. Started painting the baseboard trim and door frames.
4. Hopefully, finished the mudding of the 3rd drywall repair.
Tonight
Tonight's two big projects will be to finish the dryall repair (sanding, splattering, and painting), and to get a router and start hanging doors. If I can get the drywall done tonight and the two doors I bought last night up, I'll be happy. I have about 1/4 of the house trim painted, and that went by quickly, so maybe I can get that done tonight as well.
It's looking like I'll be done with all my stuff by the end of the weekend. I'm still strongly debating the carpet issue. I want to wait until after I'm done with all the other indoor projects and vaccuum the carpet real good. I'll then get some carpet stain remover and see how well it does on the tougher stains in the house. If it does okay, I just may have the carpet professionally cleaned and restretched. If it looks crappy, I'll just replace the carpet altogether. Estimates I've gotten from other people are anywhere from $1,500-$2,000 to have the old carpet removed and new carpet installed. It may just be worth it.
2 comments:
In regards to your door replacement.
In the past you used to be able to order door slabs with custom hinge and bore placements. Measurements were given from the top of the door to the top of the first hinge, top of door to top of second hinge, and top of door to third hinge (if you had three hinges). Also the bore for the handle was measured from top of door to center of bore. They cost a bit more than their stock door slabs but it saves you the trouble of route and boring the door yourself. Of course this only works if you have TIME, because they were special order and could take 1 - 2 weeks depending on what day of the week you placed your order (and how competent your salesperson was as well).
Good luck.
Thanks, Zeke. As you can tell from my latest post, I've become an (cough) expert now on hanging doors. Of course, next time I have to hang them, I hope I remember the headache I went through with these doors, and try not to repeat my mistakes.
Post a Comment