DIY   home improvement   outdoor   tools  

While the sliding doors still need handles, today has been dedicated to the other end's door.... with mixed results.

Yep.  Murphy strikes again.  We were in a rush to get the sheathing up on the end with the swinging door and I measured the width of the framing, and the door would barely fit with the casing boards but I figured I could make adjustments later if needed.

 

Do you remember me saying “I have a belt-sander and know how to use it”?  Well someone should have just slapped me straight across the face.  Yep.  Four sanding belts later (and that was after cutting with the circular saw down each side of a 5.5 inch board and then sanding out the middle 2.5 inches), and I finally have a door casing that will fit in the space with the door.  Hours and hours later, and I somehow ended up with sawdust everywhere... including my underwear.  Not a good thing. 

But the door fits, right?

 

Well... except that I was in a rush to get that wall up the morning before my parents got here and evidently planned to measure out the height for the door correctly later.  Yeah… you guessed it… by the time we were putting on the sheathing, I had forgotten about it and just assumed that the height was correct.  Then later I cut the siding with the same theory.

 

 

The frame and trim will be about 3 inches higher than the door.  WAY too late to do anything about it now though.  Guess I will put in a trim plate of some kind and just paint it to match the door when it gets painted.

So despite taking ALL day long for a job that should have taken a couple hours... I am still not quite done with the door.

On the good side though, my little palm router worked even better than I expected and was very easy to handle by taking out only a small layer (about that of a hinge) at a time.  While my hinge mortises are not factory perfect, I think they turned out really well.

 

 

Of course, I still need to go to the store and pick up the back pieces and door weatherstripping that the door will bump against to seal out the air.  So I still have more work to do before it is really done.  But it is there... and swings... and closes... and opens.  Quite a step forward.

On another note... the weather has been so bad lately with rain and hail and a slightly painful chill, that I have been struggling to keep working.  So I went ahead and ordered a little oil-filled radiator heater for the shop so that I could have a little warmth out there.  It arrived last night....  and today has been the warmest and most sunny day in a month!  Isn't that always the way?