The doors in the house go open and shut

A handyman's been at the house for the past few days, tackling the long list of little repairs and upgrades we've compiled since moving in. Owning an old house means you've always got stuff like this to do, but because it's so rinky-dink it is very difficult to find anyone willing to show up, do the job and take your money. We enticed our current guy with the prospect of a kitchen remod down the road. So far, so good. In typical handyman fashion, he went MIA for a few days last week, but he left his tools here, so we figured he'd come back eventually. He did, and now things are rolling right along. A French door was hung in the previously open doorway leading down to the basement in our back room, and the not-exactly-condusive-to-privacy bi-fold door on the first floor bathroom was replaced with a proper door. Right now he's replacing the front door. Previous owners put down tile right inside the door (why, I don't know), but the tile was so high that it interfered with the door. It wasn't a minor problem--you had to really shove the door hard to open and shut it, and the lack of clearance meant the weather stripping was destroyed. I don't know why it wasn't fixed before. Anyway, all the dragging damaged the bottom of the old door badly, and fixing it was going to be a relatively big job. Since the door was pretty damn ugly anyway (faux frosted glass with faux lead accents), we figured we might as well get a new one. He's putting in new tile, too.

So, three new doors in one day, and the results are good. The front door looks a lot better. It has a window with clear glass, so we get a bit more light in the hallway now. Tomorrow (or maybe some other day--we'll see) he's coming back to put in new tile and install a dryer vent in the basement. Right now we just stick the vening tube out the window when we're using the dryer. The colder it gets, the less attractive this option becomes. Also, if you forget to stick the tube out the window, the fire alarm goes off.

Ah, the joys of this old house. . .