Tale of Two Woes

On Saturday, I thought I’d take advantage of the nice weather by doing some winter weather proofing... namely, putting weather stripping around the front door so that I couldn’t see daylight through the ¼” gap on the one side. Keep in mind, I’ve *never* bought weather stripping nor have I installed it. How hard can it be, right? Just peel and stick. Yeah, right.

After a trip to Menards, I arrived home with ½ x ½ “ foam weather stripping. I pressed it in place along the top and side. Door won’t close! Well crap shoot. No amount of shoving, pressing, or cussing helped to get the door closed.

So I IM a friend who tells me I could trim the stuff to size. Uh no… I wasn’t about to start trimming a $3 piece of foam stripping with a utility knife in *hopes* that I’d get it to the right size. So then he says they make smaller sizes. Off to Menards I go again.

Why is it I can never go to Menards and just get what it is I went for? I came home with another brand and size of weather stripping, two door sweeps, saw horses, and pepperoni sticks. I was hungry, ok? LOL

I removed the other weather stripping (which was a much better brand) and pressed the cheap crap stuff in place. Yes, it’s narrower and softer. No, the door STILL does not close! Well, what the heck?!

Did I mention that while trying to get the door closed, I broke the lower bracket of the cellular blind that hangs on the door? No? Yes, I did. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was after I broke it that I realized the cord of the blind was also broken which means I can’t raise or lower the blind properly and it hangs there lopsided!

By this time I was pretty frustrated. Just imagine the scene in Sweet Home Alabama where Jake (Josh Lewis) tries to close the blind on his front door and it won’t cooperate. He eventually has a little “fight” with it and ends up mangling it and pulling it off the door, throwing it to the floor. That’s what I felt like doing.

What to do, what to do? I decided to take the latch plate off and move it about 1/8” so I could get the door latched. This involved chiseling out the door jam and filling the holes where the old screws were. Now, it’d probably have worked a bit easier if I a wood chisel. Such was not the case... instead I used a hammer and a metal paint scraper. Ingenuity at it’s worst. But hey, it worked.

Since I had to let the wood filler dry, I thought I’d put the door sweep in place. First measure. Draw the lines. Go out to the garage and get the hack saw. Oh yeah… they make it look so EASY on TV. The metal strip on the sweep is very flimsy when it comes to using a hack saw on it. I ended up bending the strip slightly. Frustrated that it wasn’t sawing like it should, I ended up using my pruning shears (Please do not try this at home!) to cut it the rest of the way. In my eyes, it looked crappy (Think I’m a perfectionist?), but at that point I really didn’t care. I went back into the house and placed it against the door.

In disbelief, I gazed at a sweep that was ½” short! A little guy in my mind is dancing around laughing at me and reciting “Measure twice, cut once! Measure twice, cut once!” A debate starts: Do I put it on anyway, or do I trash it and start over? After all, if I trashed it I’d have spent about $10 that I might as well thrown out the window. What a learning experience!

Do you think I need new doors? Yes! Until I can get them replaced, this will have to do. By Sunday, I finally got the door closed all the way and latched. I still haven’t decided what to do about the door sweep. I’ll probably put it on anyway, rather than go buy another one and start over.

*sigh* I should’ve just re-arranged my bedroom like I really wanted to do.