16. The Next Project

Skipped the yard sales yesterday.  I didn't see anything advertised that looked interesting, and I was just too pooped from Friday to even try, so I took most of the morning off.  Later on I did go up to see the guys at Superior Trim and Door, and show them my siding sample that I pried off the house.  Well I guess the little piece I brought them was missing some of it so there wasn't a full profile to make the replacement pieces.  They strongly recommended I just take off a whole board and bring them that - I guess it's worth it to get the match correctly.  So next time I go to the house I will be prying a board off of the front porch - and probably part of the door trim with it.

They did have a bunch of locks and handle sets for doors at really great prices - so I picked up the three deadbolt and handle sets for $57.  They're more than $50 each at Home Depot.  Score!!

You will be happy to know that the next time I go to Grandview (on Wednesday) I am actually going to start some work.  The first project I'll be doing is replacing the right-hand garage door with a regular exterior door.  I have asked Jake to go with me and help me, and I'll find out tomorrow if he can do that.

Here's the illustration - please don't judge my lame Photoshop skills!  I have already picked out a plain steel entry door that comes complete with the hinges and jamb for $109, which I thought was a pretty good deal.  The garage door opening is 80" high, and the door with the jamb is a little taller, so we may have to take out the top or bottom of the jamb prior to installation.  It's still worth it to get the door with the jamb included because the hinges are all on which saves a LOT of work.   The rest of the space will be framed out with 2x4's (pressure treated of course) which is really simple.  I am going to look at siding tomorrow at HD because I haven't decided yet what kind I will put there.  Nothing fancy.

I want to be able to open a regular door to the basement and not have to open that big, cumbersome garage door every time.  It's a cool door, but it takes more than the push of a button to get it open, so I'll only use that when I need to get in and out with something big.  I will take pictures during the work, so you can see how we do it.  See this is an educational blog after all!!

The ADT installer is also coming on Wednesday afternoon.  I will list the ugly couches on CL and hopefully get rid of them that day also.  If I get my survey in the mail by Tuesday, I will have the fence and front door permit applications ready to take to the City on Wednesday as well.  Tomorrow I'll show you the fence plan - one of the great things about taking so long to do anything is you can think about every possible way to lay it out.  The way I do things is very rarely the way I thought to do it at first - the ideas have to stew and brew a little bit, with some of those 2:00am  AHA moments before I come up with the "perfect" plan.