For Sale

For Sale: Soon to be two year old boy who is full of piss and vinegar. Great for remodeling projects. Can assist with the demolition of furniture, destruction of pocket french doors, pulling down and smashing pictures, altering paint projects, and various other tasks.

Okay, obviously I am kidding. However, I don't mind saying that he's lucky he's cute. So I get home from a long, hot, dirty day at work and the first thing I am greeted with is Jules saying "hi honey, guess what Nater did today?" Then I am quickly directed to our pocket french door which slides in and out between our sunroom and living room. As I take a first glance I notice that one side is completely hanging down on the wood floor and not hanging where it is supposed to be. Incidentally, the second thing I notice is the various fingerprints and smudges and Cheetos/Doritos hand prints all over the door as well.

So after getting the 411 from Jules about how Nater was ticked off that he was in the Sunroom and Jules was not and he took it upon himself to "Hulk" out and rip the door off to the sliders I decided that I should take a look first hand. My first thought was "surely re-hanging a door can't be a difficult task". As I was soon to find out, I know why people have "second thoughts". In fact, in my vast experience as a handy man, it seems nothing is ever "easy". (But that's another story - Ha Ha)

Anyway, after carefully inspecting the situation, and attempting to rehang the door, I decided that I needed help from an man who is relatively handy at these things...my neighbor Scott. Why not Jules you ask? Because as I was messing with the door, she was yelling at Jackson about homework, fixing dinner and finding a way to shove the aforementioned almost two year old into a Doritos bag and stow him in the pantry for the night. No success. So it was down to me and Scott.

About twenty minutes later Scott was here. We both quickly figured out the "how" of the "how does this door hang in the first place?" What we were not so successful with was the "how the hell do we do it" phase. Every attempt we tried met with utter failure. After a closer inspection of the molding around the door frame it was clear that the original "hangers" of the door had done so before the molding was placed around the frame. It was the only way to do it and have the necessary room to lock in the hanging pins. Now this "simple" project has been put off until tomorrow so we can now do the following: pull apart the trim work and molding around the door frame, reset the door, re-attach the trim and molding (if no damage has been done - otherwise cut new molding) and finally re-paint the area. Nice!

In the meantime, I have placed Nathan on notice. Any more destruction and he was going to be placed in time out behind bars in the laundry room to sleep with our dog Bella. After advising Julie of my new found stance she calmly let me know that Nathan loves to sleep in the dog's room on her new bed anyway and he would love it. Great. I am running out of options.

How about "Free to a good home....."