I had grand plans this last weekend to get the office walls completed and the interior door installed. I was on my own but I figured I could get it done. This was unfortunately an unrealistic goal. I should know that by now, every time I get to the finish parts it takes forever to finish.
I only have 48-52” pieces of wall tongue and groove left. I have enough pieces I was sure I could just slap them up and get it done. I failed to account for the fact that every new piece needs to be on a vertical stud. This means cutting every board at least twice if not three times. Mind you at least I can get the boards installed, they are short enough to handle alone but to get the edges correct I have to install the entire row and then go back and nail it in place. It was a lot more cutting and tape measure work and remeasuring and recutting than I expected and I failed to get the wall completed in the five hours I allotted to completing the wall. I now only have 20” of vertical height left but I have to still do cutouts for two outlets. I contemplated finishing the wall on Sunday but the heater is now installed and the interior door really needs to be installed to help trap the heat in the office.
Sunday I decided to install the door, I did get a late morning start as I usually spend a few hours cleaning the house on Sunday. I like to do it when no one is around. I can turn the music up and just do it. Now that we have speakers all over the house I can just hook my phone up and play the music throughout the house so even as I run around I never loose noise. It is the best! No one else in the family truly appreciates Disco music.
I had measured the door opening eons ago and was certain all I needed to do was cut the overlapping facia boards and install the door. I nailed in the boards all around the frame and got out my trusty Makita battery sawzall. Most of my tools are now DeWalt but I was a Makita fan due to the size of their tools, they made the handles smaller than any other company, which made them easier for me to hold onto. The entire house and barn remodel was done with cordless Makita tools. I keep thinking about going out and getting a DeWalt sawzall but the Makita still works and I have lots of batteries! So I keep the drill, driver and sawzall until the batteries go bad and then I will be all DeWalt.
Once I had the opening cut I unwrapped the door and got it over and ready to slide in place. This is where it started to go sideways. I wanted to not do anything with the opening. It was framed eons ago when the old house was built, most likely prior to 1900. It was built as a one room building over a root cellar, which acted as a foundation. Over time, two more rooms were added along with enclosing two parts of the wrap around porch. There was not an interior door there just a finished frame which I tore out moons ago. Still, who would not make the opening a standard size? The opening is a standard size, the exact size of the roughed frame size of the new door. I cut the door opening three separate times trying to shave just enough off to get the door to slide in. I did check to see how square the opening was and it was good. I figured if I could pound the door into place it would work. Nope and nope, it was not going to go into that opening. The overhead 2×4 was canted slightly and I was just going to have to cut into the 2×4 to make the door fit and I did not want to weaken the door frame. The simple solution is to just give up and go buy a new door that is one inch smaller. How hard could that be?
Annmarie wanted to go to Home Depot with me so we went over, me in grubbies with a tape measure and her looking like she was allowed out in public. Who knew they only make two sizes of outer door? I did not, so then we looked at interior doors, but we wanted a window in the door to let light into the room from the other room. My trouble door has a large window with a built in blind. I was going to have to create a window and cut it into the interior door and then frame it out. After much tape measure use, some choice words, I resigned to the obvious suggestion, I was going to have to install a 2×4 on top and to one side of the opening and then cut out the original support structures gaining myself one inch on both sides of the door and two inches above the door. Once we decided that, we still managed to spend $200 on stuff. We did get a remote thermometer for the office so we could track the internal room temperature and see how well the heat pump was working. I will have to implement the door opening adjustment at a later date.
Stewart Creek Somethings 