Progress Report: Hall Bedroom Door. Or: Aw Man, I'm a Bozo.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Righty-o folks, the hall bedroom door is in progress!  Indeed it is.  Yay!

While I decide on how to finish the door itself, door pulls, ya know, stuff and junk, and try try try to stop my brain from optioning and just pick finishes, I can work on the door frame.

First order of business?  Removing the existing door.

Hey look, it's a door!
And man, that was fun.  No, like for real -- it gave me instantaneous results in the room, how this is all going to pan out in the end.  And it was awesome!  All that additional free space!

Hey look, the door is gone!  Hey, there's the track hardware, there on the bed.  Ahem.
Well.  Relatively speaking, anyway.

It was rather surprising how heavy the door was once I removed it and carted it across the room.  No wonder I jump five miles in the air every time one of them slams in the breeze.  Bam!  Ahhhhh!  I wish I could make those h's all how-I-end-up-feeling melty.

There's no need for the stop within the jamb any longer so ok, I pried that off.

Can't find our lil' pry bar.  For like four years now.  :(
I discovered this while down on the floor:

Ah.  Gap.  Charming.  Hmph.
Wow, right?  I mean.  Whoever did that should be soooo proud of their, ahem, um, craftsmanship there.

*eyeroll*

How does someone do that, think that's satisfactory work and walk away?  *Shake my head.*

Off came the door catch hardware and downstairs I went for my chisel to scrape raised paint edges and the Durham's Water Putty* to patch the hinge cut outs, nail holes, and because I accidentally over-mixed, the door catch too.

Time to patchy patchy!
So, ok, a pause in the action as stuff dries.  No going back now, time to open up the track hardware, take a look at those instructions because as we know, instructions good!  Ok, all right, outta the package, now, ok, lemme just uh, flip this over here and uh...

Thunk.

What was....

CRASH!

Clink  clink  clink  clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink...

Omg.  I am SUCH an idiot.

Yup.

Siiiiiiggggghhhhhh.
So much for not spewing forth a chorus of curse words.

Thank goodness Finn boy had left the room just prior, whew.  Amazingly?  I didn't cry.  I stared, I analyzed, sighed, then forlornly stepped out to grab my work gloves and the vacuum.

Sigh.  Sh*t.  What a bozo move.  I couldn't believe I had done that.  Aw man.  Was I so sad.  So sad.  And kicking myself.  Ugh.

I checked Menards' website to see if by any strange, wildly bizarre chance they had any left since it's on clearance now.  The stock could not be any lower:  one.

One left.  !!!!!

Worse?  Their online in-stock counts are always 99.99999999% wrong.  So needless to say I was panicked.  And walking in circles for about an hour.

Then the phone rings.  It's Mike.  Calling to say hi.  He hadn't seen my super sad text with the photo of the broken light fixture.  He did say he felt a tremor in the force, felt the inexplicable need to call me, that he sensed something was awry.  I guess nearly ten years together will do that to ya.  Anyway....

"What's wrong babe?" he said.

"The light...I'm a bozo.  I broke it."

He felt terrible, was consoling and said go run right out and get the (alleged) last one at the store.

"It's ok babe, accidents happen.  And hey, if they don't have it, it gives you a chance to pick something new."  Someone's been reading my blog.  He's right though.  Hey, I guess indirectly that makes me right too!  ;)

But guess what?

They had it.  The last one.  I was shocked.  Shocked.  .00000001%!  I about passed out.

But guess what?  It was the display model, and it was hanging up.  And they couldn't get the screws off the base to remove their hanging bracket.  They didn't want me to take the fixture with their bracket still attached.

In a withering voice I said, "can I take it anyway, get the bracket off and return that part to you?"  I received a skeptical stare back but the guy saw my pathetically pleading sad eyes and relented.

So now I gotta figure out how to get their bracket thingie off which may or may not be difficult, then hang this new fixture up.

First I have to muster up the bravery to get the fixture out of the car, after which time I'll share a photo of the bracket situation.  I'm all rattled nervous about breaking more things that I can't even touch the fixture!

But how glad am I that I had already written about the trials and tribulations I went through to get this fixture up in the first place?

You have no idea.  Thank holy all get out goodness I started this darn blog.  Who knew it'd turn into such a handy reference tool for when I am such a tool?!

Ah, Murphy's Law, my BFF, my arch-nemesis evil shadow, my middle name.  I shall and will overcome though.  Rawr!

2 comments

  1. Aww man, that's a bummer about the broken light but at least you found a replacement... store bracket attached or no store bracket attached! lol! I wonder if the door casing thing has that gap because there used to be carpet on the floors... my last house had a gap like that and I always assumed that's why... because I know my old house had carpet.

    Tania

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    Replies
    1. Hi Tania! It is a huge bummer about the light but alas, mistakes do happen. Sigh!

      Since our building was a gut rehab by the flipper and all the doors in the house match, I'm assuming he put them all in, therefore the "carpenter" was a butthead. The gap is only on one side and it's the only door with a gap. That I've seen anyway! Ugh! But you're right, that gap is normally for carpet. Thanks for stopping by -- nice to see you!

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