Monday, September 15, 2008

Do the research FIRST

Otherwise known as - Baja's doors part 1.

So Baja's room had no door. In fact, it had a vaguely middle-eastern look, with its pointed top, and no frame. Therefore, hanging a door in the opening was not going to be a joy. I concocted a brilliant plan - I would find double doors, like closet doors, put some wood around the outside of the doorway, and hang the doors from the wood.

The first phase went beautifully - I found lovely solid wood doors on Craigslist, for free! It was the actual hanging that began the difficulties... First, when hanging the wood, I didn't measure correctly and the cross piece was too high for the doors - it would show and the doors would not sit flush with it. Remove, recut, replace. Result - five extra holes I must now patch. The doors were too wide. No fear, I bought a new saw blade, and cut them. Door 1 cut beautifully. Door 2 did not. There was some burning. And curving of the cut. And general annoyance. Door 2 is no longer quite so beautiful.

Then to the hanging - Door 1 again went nicely. Door 2 is just plain evil. Firstly, because the radiator is too close to the door, it won't swing open all the way (that's ok, I knew that), and in order to put the door on, we had to chisel gouges in the wood of the "frame". Luckily Erin is good at that. However, I then went on to display a large inability to line the hinges up, resulting in the bottom hinge deciding to pull out of the (not solid wood, particle board) door. And there's not really enough room to attach the hinges, since the door won't open all the way. Can't get the pin in if we take the hinges apart, and can't get the drill in straight if we don't. So the screw heads will stick out. But at that point it had been a very long day, and Max sensibly suggested we finish that door later, once we figure out how to reattach the hinge.

It occurred to me today that I should really look to see how many hinges I should actually use, after assuming that two per door is fine. In a (not) shocking turn of events - I should be using three for these heavy doors. And I didn't place them on the door correctly, having assumed that they should be equidistant from the top and bottom. Not so much. It won't be too much of a big deal to add a hinge per door, but the placement will stay. But now I have to go get more hinges before we can finish. Buying them all at once on Sun would have been much easier. Hence the post title... And really, at this point I should know better!

Pics and results coming soon...

1 comment:

Craig said...

hmmm. didn't consult your favorite contractor for advice did you?