Open and shut – WTF

I have a mudroom. The mudroom has a door that leads outside and another that leads into the house. The door to the house hasn’t shut right since day one at the Bar B.

The latch gets stuck. The door knob is janky. It opens for no reason. I close it at night and it’s open in the morning. Freaking door.

I bought a new doorknob as part of the Bar B re-construction project, (screens, paint, shit like that) and asked my son to install it.

Paul is artful in his ability to fix things. A project is a canvas and his tools are his medium. Now he’s not one to initiate a project, oh, no he’ll wait until he’s asked.

I asked for filter changes today and that new doorknob.

Paul started on the project and kindly set aside the old knob. He expertly took the parts out of package, no instructions needed. He deftly installed the knob and lock and tested it.

It didn’t work.

The knob turned OK but in order to actually lock it he had to pull on it really hard. That didn’t sit well with him. He fussed a bit, taking the coat rack off the door. No good. He pounded on the door jam. Still no good. He tightened the hinges. He said he thought the problem might be that the house is off kilter.

Then he noticed a problem.

Two of the hinges on the door were held in place by four-inch nails. Skinny nails like the ones you’d use to put together a building and with no business being there. He pulled them out and replaced them with two pins from the missing door that leads to my office (a whole other story about) and voila! My door opens and closes like it knows its business.

I put the old sad knob in a bag and put it in the box to go to Goodwill. It served it’s purpose and some other wiz-tool artist can probably make it right. I don’t give up on old things.

I can’t imagine that someone was too lazy to run down to Ace and get two pins for the door. I suppose that includes me but I never thought about checking the hinges for my door problems.

And another task at the Bar B bites the dust.

Click.