Small Victories

This weekend wasn’t full of many of them.  But at least one project we attempted to tackle this weekend was successfully completed: replacing the basement door knob.

Wondering what we were up to?  Well I randomly decided this would be the PERFECT weekend to start the bathroom tiling project.  A project which involved 2 trips to Home Depot, shelling out about $300, countless necessities for band-aids, bruised knees, a swollen hand (Note: hammers were meant to make contact with a NAIL, not the soft spot between your thumb and pointer fingers), the necessity to essentially re-frame in areas of the walls around the shower because the person who built it is a complete moron… there’s no other explanation, more black mold, about 4 large black garbage bags of destruction filling up the alley behind our house… I could go on.

Biting off more than I can chew is a common theme these days.  So on my early Sunday morning second trip to Home Depot following loads of cursing and tool tossing, I decided I needed a small victory.  So since I’m no where near ready to fill you in on all the details of our disaster of a bathroom, let me share with you what we DID successfully accomplish this weekend.

The basement door knob has been one of those annoying things you just deal with every day and never actually add it to your “need to fix” list.  But in all honesty, it was really annoying.  It was one of those door knobs that you had to wiggle and jiggle a few times in order to get it to turn.  There was never any fear of the one day when it just wouldn’t open.  It didn’t really stick like that.  It just took about 5 extra seconds to turn a door knob than I felt was necessary.  It was also gold.  And with brushed nickel hardware everywhere else on the main floor, it just had to go.

So for $8, I snagged a new door knob from HD.  It’s an interior handle with no lock – super easy to install.

Here’s what you need to do.  First, remove the existing hardware.  Unscrew the handle and gently pull apart the two handles on either side of the door (you may have to jiggle slightly until they separate).  Then remove the screws on the edge of the door holding the interior latch piece.  That pulls right out.  Make sure you also remove the hardware on the frame that catches the latch.

Then you just replace everything in reverse order from above.  Make sure you really pay attention to which direction the latch needs to be placed.  The curved side should be facing in, the straight side out.  Finally, open and close your door multiple times and giggle at your success and ability to avoid for 15 minutes the mess that awaits you upstairs.