Wednesday, April 10, 2013

$40 well spent

Our house will be 100 years old next year, so it has a few quirks. One of them is that the bathroom door was difficult to close. The door itself is original, but the hinge on the door is not, so the two don't work together very well. Plus the frame where the door sits when it's closed wasn't in quite the right position.

For the past nine months, we just lived with it as is. The door still closed, but you just had to turn the knob a certain way, give it a specific look while biting your tongue in a certain spot, while pushing on the door to latch. Husband and I both knew the tricks, so it didn't REALLY bother us. However, it was troublesome when guests came over. Plus, because it wasn't quite in the right position when closed, the lock didn't work. So finally we decided to make it a priority on our house to do list.

As neither Husband nor I knew how to fix it (heck, we didn't even know all of the issues until someone told us!), I responded to a few handyman ads on Kijiji and got immediate responses from all three. I emailed the last guy back as he had the best email (clear, concise, and included a rough price, but also an hourly rate if it was more work once he saw it). A couple emails later, we had arranged for him to come over that evening to take a look.

Within one hour, he had the door fixed and it works like a dream now! And he only charged us $40, which is $10 less than he quoted in his email to me. He was friendly and easy to deal with and we'll definitely be contacting him again for other projects.

I know we could have lived with the door as is for longer, but for only $40, it's probably one of the best things I've paid for in the house. It isn't much, but it makes the day-to-day life that much more pleasant. We can close the door quietly and not have to wake each other up (key when your Husband works the night shift) and guests don't have to do a dance to get the door closed.

Does your home have any small quirks that you just live with?

2 comments:

  1. My front door sticks. It's not too bad during the summer, but during the winter it gets really tough to open. It serves as a little bit of a thermometer for me. If I grab the door handle and it's harder to open than the day before, I know that the temperature has dropped outside and I should probably put a heavier coat on!

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    1. Talk about looking on the bright side! lol That would drive me insane! Right now one of our back doors doesn't always latch because of the foundation issues and it's constantly on my mind.

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