The Door Handle That Killed My Husband

Several weeks ago Corby decided we needed new hardware on the front door -- and we really did need it. The old hardware had to be original to the house (1941) the glass knob on the inside jiggled and often did nothing -- you had to have it in just the right place and the dead bolt was not centered in the door cross section so in order to lock the dead bolt you had to have the door slightly ajar... it was a mess. However, the door is a super nice, OLD solid wood door -- and I would not get rid of it for the world.

Corby decided to work on the door on Saturday and had no clue it was going to take 2 days, 4 trips to Lowe's, a hand wound, sanding in the middle of the night, a new set of chisels (he could not find his), epoxy, and several loud cursing sessions to accomplish such a task. I did not either.

The main problem, as I understood it was that once the old hardware was removed, the "holes" in the door that held the door handle mechanism and deadbolt would not fit the new stuff and the door had been chiseled and scooped out so as to accommodate the old hardware. Needless to say, Corby is brilliant with this type of thing and he came up with a plan so as to plug the old holes with wood, wood shims, epoxy and even a bond-o type material. It took a while and many layers of goop, setting and then sanding. The front room of my house looked like a workshop -- saw dust, random tools, drill bits, sanders, screws, cords, etc. My job was to keep Q out of the "workshop" and that proved hard -- but I did do it. The few times he got in there he ended up stealing something, once I caught him with a drill bit, another time he had a screw and nut, then another time a chisel. Nice.

Needless to say -- Corby did a beautiful job -- but it wore him out. He came in and laid on the kitchen floor. Q had to check and make sure he was not dead.

He just called me -- he was at Lowe's -- once again buying something for the door, this time paint.