Home Ownership is Fun!

"Fucking Tafoyas" is a common refrain heard in our home.  The previous homeowners had some, um, "creative" solutions to issues that they had in the house.  When we moved in, the dryer was in the basement, and the washer was one level up, so we hired an electrician to reroute the electrical for the dryer to the laundry room.  Then we discovered that the cabinetry above the fridge wasn't hung level, after the new shiny fridge was purchased, and in our kitchen (of course), which meant we  had to run out and buy a planer to shave inches off of the bottom of the cabinetry.  The latest fun?  Replacing all of the interior doors.  Not only were they pressed "wood grain" particleboard, but apparently someone in the previous owner's family had a bit of an anger issue - EVERY interior door in the house has a "punch" or a "kick" hole in it (please make punching and kicking motions as you read this.  I do).  The previous owner's solution wasn't to replace the doors - instead they purchased wood-grain contact paper to cover all the holes.  It's pretty hilarious actually, and what's even more hilarious is that we didn't notice the punches or kicks until I was working with the home inspector. 

I'm sure this goes without saying, but S and I don't really care for wood-grained doors with other wood-grained contact paper covering the holes.  We fancy ourselves pretty handy, so we've decided to replace all of the doors in our house ourselves.  Sounds easy right?  HA.  We thought we could just buy new doors, and use the existing frames - FAIL.  The door frames in the house aren't standard (maybe they were when the house was built), so we have to go the pre-hung door route, which involves tearing out the existing frame, putting a new one in, and shimming everything.  We've replaced 3 doors (out of 11), and we've got a system worked out.  I cut the shims (using my awesome dremel.  Best. Purchase. EVER), and hold the door when need be - S is best at shimming.  Then he hammers the shims into the frame (for stability), and I use my nail punch to drive the nail into the wood fully, so I can putty and paint over it at some point. 

The particular door that we did this weekend was awful.  To close it, you had to grab the handle and hold the door up to get it to close, because the holes the screws for the hinges were in had been stripped at some point in the past.  The Tafoya's solution? 3 INCH WOOD SCREWS.  GAH.  I have jokingly told S that we should make up a family crest and have "Fucking Tafoyas" as our family motto.

Anyways, on to a few pictures:

This is a listing picture.  If you look closely, you can see the contact paper covering a "kick"

Not the coat closet door, but this fully illustrates the awesomeness of the 80's door with kick-holes in it + wood patterned contact paper = success mantra that the previous owners followed.

 

The somewhat final product - missing the trim of course.  We'll start working on that once we get a nail gun (and we'll be gangsta like Snoop) The doorknob is oil-rubbed bronze, and the walls are Martha Stewart's Fawn.  I love our house.  Especially the stained glass piece above the closet, and my first stuffed animal ever, Eggbert.  He watches over everything.

Our entryway is nearly complete - I still think I want to find something to do with the area that has the coats hanging on the wall, and my china hutch will make everything nicer, but I'm pretty happy with the way it's all turned out.   

I was going to include a picture of the cat, but blogger's photo uploader thingy is sucking balls, so sorry, no Huntercat.