Real friends fix doors
By ElicBxn
@ElicBxn (63594)
United States
March 8, 2010 8:26am CST
I've lived in this house for 26 years. During that time I've not had too many problems with the doors, but we did have one door pull off the top hinge and had to get a handy guy to fix it.
He told me that if I glued golf tees in the holes, that would work to give you a fresh start.
Well, we had a bathroom door hitting on the top and the office door dragging on the floor.
I figured that if we planed them, they would stop. A few weeks ago we went to Lowe's and got a plane, some paint and a few other things.
We didn't get the doors done, tho.
Then, last week, the bathroom door didn't just keep hitting, it ripped out its top hinge!
Well, we were sort of stuck, either we could shut the door and keep it shut until we could fix it, or we could take off the bottom hinge to keep it from ripping out.
After a bit of thinking about it, I unscrewed the bottom hinge too.
So, Saturday, our friend J, came over and helped us. We got some wood filler and filled in all 6 holes on the bathroom door with golf tees so we could then drill new ones so the door sat in the frame about a half inch lower.
While that was drying, we pulled the office door off and planed the bottom. J was pleasantly surprised I had bought the right tools for the job and about 20 minutes of planing got the door so it now opens and closes smoothly.
I mean, if the floor was even a tiny bit DIRTY, this dumb door scraped in one place, now it opens and shuts like a dream!
After we were done with that, J went over and cut the tees off level with the door, we cut out a bit for the hinge to fit into the door in a new spot and 30 minutes later we had the door up again!
It took less than 2 hours to do both doors and even J said he had guessed it would take a LOT longer. He also said the golf tees were a great idea and worked great.
So, have you had a fixing day around your place lately? What did you fix?
6 people like this
18 responses
@scarlet_woman (23463)
• United States
8 Mar 10
painted cabinets..the real fixing's not til spring when the porch has to be repaired..oy.
hopefully it's not another constant rain year.
hopefully it's not another constant rain year.2 people like this
@scarlet_woman (23463)
• United States
9 Mar 10
LOL!
oh dear..i have a spot of that to be fixed myself.
elderly cats occasionally have an oops.he was 17 tho,so i forgave him.
1 person likes this
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
8 Mar 10
Gold tee's? that's an interesting idea. I'll have to tell that to hubby!
The closest we've had is my hubby was on a spring cleaning kick and cleaned out our bathroom & re-cauked the bathtub. Mind you I bought the cauk last August and it was sitting on his dresser all this time. *sigh* My MIL told me to just do it myself but I figured if I did it, it wouldn't be done quite right or whatever KWIM?
2 people like this
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
8 Mar 10
I am about as handy as a third thumb would be, lol. Iwish i were handy but have to hire someone to fix anything around that needs fixing. Sounds like to me u real handy, good for u.
2 people like this
@bellis716 (4799)
• United States
8 Mar 10
At age 81, my husband is still able to fix most things like those sticky doors. I wouldn't have the strength to hold the door up. Ask me what I fixed in the sewing room or kitchen, and I'll tell you how I messed it up.
@vandana7 (100303)
• India
8 Mar 10
Hi ElicBxn, my father can repair everything - temporarily. :) He is not open to listening - so there are no permanent solutions out here. :) Anything I suggest is immediately shelved. Anything I volunteer to do is bypassed. Only he has to do it. LOL. It is that kind of life for me as of now. :) I will have my day of reckoning I suppose. :)
@lingli_78 (12822)
• Australia
8 Mar 10
i'm so glad to hear that you managed to fix your doors and i'm sure you must be feeling very happy now... also, it is very kind of your friend to help you to fix the door... as for me and my hubby, we haven't done any fixing yet recently as there is nothing to be fixed yet... but we did lots of cleaning as we have lots of unused items in our garage and storage room... my hubby throw out quite a lot of stuffs when we did the cleaning... take care and have a nice day...
1 person likes this
@ronaldinu (12422)
• Malta
9 Mar 10
I admire you to get your job done. unfortunately i don't like manual work much. I am not very good at fixing things. I am not very able with my hands. The only job that I do is painting walls. I am a perfectionist. So I take double tie than a normal worker would but I would make sure that the job is up to perfection. Lately I have painted the roof floor with an elastic paint that protects the roof from raindrops. It took me a whole morning to do i.t
1 person likes this
@Loverbear (4918)
• United States
9 Mar 10
My fix for the day was replacing the license plate lights on my car. It worked out fine even though one bulb was so fried that it disintegrated in the socket.
Does pulling weeds count? I pulled and filled five 32 gallon garbage cans full of weeds during the weekend (and I wonder why I can't walk!!
).
I taught myself a lot of handy man stuff, mostly by watching my father and doing the opposite of what he did. 
He was such a unhandy man. He tried but screwed up what he did consistently. I am still repairing his work on the house! He put in the faucet and while I was out of town it decided to leak like Niagara Falls. Fortunately the neighbor came in to check the cats and found the flood. That's only the start. But what do you expect of a man who couldn't remember to get out from under the garage door before he closed it? I would totally lose it when I was home during the summer. Dad would leave for work and I would hear the tell tale "TWANG" of the garage door reinforcing bar and hear the swear words and know he had crowned himself again!!!!
).
I taught myself a lot of handy man stuff, mostly by watching my father and doing the opposite of what he did. He was such a unhandy man. He tried but screwed up what he did consistently. I am still repairing his work on the house! He put in the faucet and while I was out of town it decided to leak like Niagara Falls. Fortunately the neighbor came in to check the cats and found the flood. That's only the start. But what do you expect of a man who couldn't remember to get out from under the garage door before he closed it? I would totally lose it when I was home during the summer. Dad would leave for work and I would hear the tell tale "TWANG" of the garage door reinforcing bar and hear the swear words and know he had crowned himself again!!!!
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
10 Mar 10
OMG!!! what an IMAGE!!!
My dad wasn't especially handy, that's why he hired any work out!
And, he was allergic to sunshine, he got other people (often my brother) to mow the yard.
I would do things just because I liked doing some stuff - loved to trim the hedge - go figure!
That's a lot'o weeds, probably could only fill one of those garbage cans, if I were willing to go out and do it!
But that would interfere with my mylotting!
@Opal26 (17679)
• United States
9 Mar 10
Hey Elic! You guys sound so much like me! I am always looking for
ways to fix things in the best way possible! I have no problem
doing whatever it takes to get things done in the easiest way
possible! I live in a very old apartment complex where they do
as little as possible to fix things the right way so that means
that I have to intervene! My boyfriend is really handy thankfully,
but usually we don't have the right tools! If we had a drill and
powersaw we'd be in business! Now I am lookning for someone with
a powersaw to lend so that we can do some fixing and make some
shelves! If we can just do some of our own stuff it would make
our lives so much easier! Oh, and we have door problems too! The
bedroom and bathroom door have closing issues too and need some
work! Kind of similar to what you described! The only difference
is that we don't own this piece of crap apartment!
1 person likes this
@cerebellum (3863)
• United States
8 Mar 10
I think someone hit my mailbox, or maybe the snow was too heavy anyway, it was completely off the post. My neighbor fixed it once, and it got knocked off again. Then he got a new box and post and numbers and put it up. It looks really nice and the post office can deliver my mail now. They were holding it for about a month!
The main thing I miss about my ex was he would fix things for me. I used to do most stuff for myself, and it sounds like you do also. I can't do much of anything myself now, so I need to ask my friends husband or my neighbor or someone to do it for me. The thing about the golf tees is a good idea.
1 person likes this
@cerebellum (3863)
• United States
9 Mar 10
I have a friend whose husband does a lot for me. He works for the gas company and knows a lot about plumbing. He says his wife and I are a lot alike. He says I should have been her sister. He does a lot for me and I consider him a friend also, not just his wife. I hate to ask him to fix things, and sometimes it takes awhile, but he usually does what ever I need. He said he would fix my mailbox, but with all the snow we had, their patio roof fell in and it isn't insured, so he's got more than enough to do at home.
1 person likes this
@lordnooband (16)
• Japan
9 Mar 10
Last weekend my cupboard broke. I ended up going to my local hardware store, and bought some equipment to fix my cupboard.
Do you find fixing things interesting? Personally after fixing broken items in my house I prefer to fix it myself :D.
@webeishere (36313)
• United States
8 Mar 10
As a male I am a moron when it comes to fixits.
Since owning our house I have had my wifes boss and our son-in-law over to fix things. I can do some simpler things most times. I had her boss install new security lights outdoors, the SIL installed a water heater and a lot of other things. I am not the fix it type.
As always.....
HAPPY POSTINGS FROM GRANDPA BOB!!~
1 person likes this
@recycledgoth (9894)
•
8 Mar 10
WOW hun good to know you are handy around the house, when can you come and fix my shower door?
The last time I attempted to fix anything up, it was a bit of a disaster area. I tried to fix a hose onto a tap in the back garden, a relatively simple job by all accounts but having struggled to get the silly thing to screw onto the tap head I thought I'd managed to do the job ..... until I turned the tap on.
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
9 Mar 10
I have never had a hose on a faucet that didn't spray everywhere! and I normally have to have a pair of pliers to get the darn things off!
waz wrong with the door? mind you, i only have shower curtains - my mom was a great believer in glass shower doors, but I'd rather have the space so that if I hit that curtain, I won't be nursing a new bruise!
