I set out to do some home improvement today. Little bit of yardwork… got the driveway and street side edged, little bit of pruning, cut down several young but problematic sapling/trees in the yard… and decided that the problem with my office door had gone on long enough. For those that haven’t seen it in person, it won’t shut. The top of the door rubs the top of the door frame, preventing it from closing. If I wanted to close it to keep the cats out or when I was working, I’d kinda have to give it a good shove and wedge it. So I set to work.

I started off with the sander. Sanding the top of the door frame didn’t do much good. It became quickly apparent that a pretty hard wood had been used there. So instead I got to it with the door. Sand sand sand… nope. Sand sand sand… nope. Etc.

Eventually I got worried about how much I was sanding and decided to do some more investigating. It was still not closing, and still getting stuck in a similar spot. Time for some science! I hit the side of the door frame first with my level to make sure the house wasn’t falling over, and no, it was perfectly upright. Then I tried the top. The bubble was between the lines, but just barely: it leaned to one side. That was probably the issue. For grins I tried the top of the door too. It did the same thing, in the other direction.

Then Zoe learned some new bad words. She hasn’t used them yet, but I’m sure she’ll find the right moment. Luckily I was able to censor most of it (once I realized she was listening) to assorted scifi swears from over the years. Frak, frell, kriff, etc. So she probably learned those too.

Anyway, a solution was needed. I wasn’t about to give up. I got up on a small table by the door to get a look from the top down, and I saw that the door frame trim wasn’t properly flat against the wall (I AM SHOCKED), so I pried it off to see what was behind it. The top of the door frame wasn’t flat against the frame of the wall. Well cool… I could attach that better and solve it. May be ugly, but function over form for now. I screwed them together and… no. Then I pounded the doorframe with a hammer a few times. Success! Well kinda. The door will close completely into its frame (with a little extra shove).

But the latch won’t work because the hole on the frame is a bit too low. More bad words. I decided to ignore that.

When I was putting the tools away in the garage, the hanging charging mount for the weed wacker came off the wall and hit me. Erin stepped into the garage to express her concern. “Geez, that didn’t hit my car did it?!” I re-attached that bastard to a freaking stud this time (it had been using drywall screws… the thing isn’t all that heavy so I wasn’t worried about it when I first put it up) and that was that.

I don’t mind home improvements now and then. Sometimes I even secretly enjoy it. But I really wish the house would meet me halfway sometimes.