The art of home improvement procrastination

When my dear departed father received clothing as a gift -- say, a new sports shirt -- he would never wear it right away. No, it went into the closet for weeks or months, until he considered it was properly "aged".

I have embraced that same principle for home improvement projects. Three months ago, in a post about my new patio door, I mentioned that I had bought a new lockset for the front door in the same oil-rubbed bronze finish as the hardware for the patio door, but hadn't installed it yet. Lord knows the front door was in sad need of an upgrade from the El Cheapo brass key-in-knob lockset with no deadbolt, but you can't rush these things. Last weekend I finally decided the new lockset had aged long enough, so on Saturday I pulled out the instructions and set to work.

Three days, two trips to Home Depot (to buy (1) chisels and (2) a drill bit in a size my set didn't include), one pile of debris, and a lot of cussing later, I finally have a not-shiny but new handleset and deadbolt on my front door, as you can see in the inside and outside views below.



Like all such endeavors, it wasn't quite as straightforward as it might have seemed. The front side of the instruction sheet, in three languages and with line drawings, informed me that the Required tools (Outils nécessaires, Herramientas requeridas) were a straight screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver, and a tape measure.

Ha. I can only assume that the people who wrote the front of the sheet (which addressed the actual installation) didn't talk to the people who wrote the back of the sheet (which covered marking and preparing the door and jamb), because they somehow failed to list -- on either side -- the cordless drill, two battery packs, two hole saw bits (one of which did not fit the mandrel in the kit), Crescent wrench (to remove the mandrel that was stuck in the hole saw that did fit), spade bit (substitute for the hole saw that didn't fit), two regular drill bits, hammer, two chisels, utility knife, ruler, carpenter's pencil, one two-inch nail, and hunk of 2x4 that also proved to be nécessaires (or if you prefer, requeridas).


And then, when I start to gather up the plethora of tools and old parts to deposit them in the garage, I discover a leftover part. Oops. That can't be good. Back to the instruction sheet... where I eventually track down where the damned thing belongs and then have to disassemble the deadbolt again to install it.

Anyway, it's done, and looks so nice that now I'm going to have to paint the door because it looks pretty crappy in comparison. And then I need to install the new weatherstripping that's been aging since I bought it last summer. But first I need to get out the vacuum cleaner to clean the sawdust and metal shavings out of the rug.