Home Repair

We've lived in our house for 6 years, and the back door leading to the deck has never been in good working order.  It was always difficult to shut, then we noticed that the wood around the door on the outside was slowly mildewing and rotting.  

In order to make the door shut, KJ once resorted to pounding the metal threshold down with a hammer and cutting away some weather-stripping.  It fixed one problem but created another that we didn't discover until this winter:  major water flowing through the dent in the threshold onto the kitchen floor.  We were also losing a lot of heat and letting in a lot of cold air through a big gap between the door and the frame caused by the builder hanging the door crooked.  We just never even noticed until recently.  

What I did notice was mildew and THIS after some heavy rain a couple of weeks ago:

Eww.  Is that really a baby slug in my kitchen?  I sent this picture to KJ with a simple request/demand:  Fix my door.  

A few weeks ago I requested some help from my smart and handy father, and he and my mom were so generous and kind to come on Friday to fix our problem.

 It took about 7 hours and a trip to Lowe's and Wal-Mart, but these men got the job done, cutting away rotting wood and installing a new threshold.  No more water and air is coming through my now completely shut back door.  There was much rejoicing.

We still need to paint the new trim they installed outside, but I'm thankful for no more slugs in my house.  Gross.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room my mom got me moving on another project I needed to tackle:  the tale of the messy laundry closet.

There was a shelf hanging in there when we moved in that we removed to make room for our stackable.  "One of these days" we planned to raise it and just never did.  So first my mom got busy sweeping out all of the dust, puzzle pieces, and who knows how old graham cracker hidden in the depths of the closet.  Then she pulled out nails and patched holes in the wall, and then, at her urging, I went ahead and cracked open some leftover paint in the garage, and we put a fresh coat of paint on those walls.  Sometimes you just need your mom to make you do things.  Still.  After 32 years.

Sweet KJ kept his DIY hat on through Saturday and got the shelf hung.  It was a doozy trying to keep all those holes level.

He persevered through a few un-level holes and got it right in the end.  And now, it's still a work in progress, but all the junk is up off the floor, and it's a fresher space that cost us $0.  

I thought about trying to make the stuff on the shelf look pretty, but my question for all the "styled" bookshelves and closets on Pinterest is, "Where is all of your STUFF?"  

Anyway, the best part of the day was spending time with my parents, the perfect temperatures for open doors, and James got a bulls-eye.  So, it was a great day.

Oh, and James coined a new word:  to-mario.  You know, I'll see you to-mario.