Big Screen

When we bought our house, it kind of had a screen door.

Kind of, you say?  

Yes, kind of (per this photo from August 2012):

So, yeah.  Not cute.  It was 1) unpainted, 2) torn, 3) incorrectly installed-- see the big silver hinges screwed into the door molding?  And it didn't have a pneumatic closer (obviously), so if you wanted to hold it open, you had to do it like this:

 

Yes, what you're looking at is the old screen door TIED to the front of the house.  

My dad removed it for us (along with the dead bush that was tied to the house on the other side of the door) about a week after we closed on the house.  He tried to buy a new hinge for it and reattach it properly, but by that point both the door and the door frame had been damaged beyond repair.  There was pretty much no way to make that door work.

So we went nearly a year without a screen door-- not really a big deal except that none of the other windows in our living room / dining room area can be opened.  So when it's hot out, it's also pretty stuffy in the living area.  After a bunch of warm, beautiful days left us sweating profusely as we watched TV, on Saturday we finally decided to head over to the Home Depot and see what they had in the way of screen doors.  

Our minds were totally blown when we walked in and encountered the perfect door for $148: already the exact same color as our front door (how in the hell does that happen?), precisely the right size, in stock, etc.  And it promised an easy install (which we were not stupid enough to fall for-- we know by now that there's no such thing as an easy install).  So we handed over a $50 gift card we had left over from Christmas and coughed up the remaining $98.  Feeling cautiously optimistic, we headed home and started the install.

And really, it was easy!  Well, it would have been easy except for three tiny little things:

FIRST SNAFU: While we were hacksawing the frame pieces to fit into our door opening, our hacksaw blade snapped in half.  That left us to find the other (broken) hacksaw and change out the broken blade for the whole one.  If you've ever tried to change a hacksaw blade, you know you have to fit two microscopic pins through two microscopic holes on either end of the tiny blade, then quickly jam the whole thing into the hacksaw frame before the pins fall out.  Time lost due to the broken blade: 15min

SECOND SNAFU: We were supposed to drill the holes for the door handle with a 5/16" drill bit.  We didn't have one, but we had a 1/4" bit.  We were much too lazy to go all the way back to the Home Depot after a drill bit just 1/16" bigger than the one we already had, so we decided to make it work.  We eventually succeeded.  Let's just leave it at that.  Time lost due to our stubbornness: 30min

THIRD SNAFU:  During the drill-bit-too-small-for-the-job disaster, I somehow managed to drop the teeny-tiny spring mechanism that fits inside the door handle.  The spring bounced, and we could. not. find. it. anywhere.  This culminated in me sweeping the entire driveway and then sifting through the dirt with my fingers.  I finally found it.  Time lost due to my clumsiness: 1hr.

But now we have a functional, attractive screen door that lets the fresh air in!  And it doesn't have to be tied to our house!  Hurray!

Pardon the disgusting iPhone photo as always.  Anyway, as you can see, we have lots of work do to on the landscaping front.  We've done a ton to the front of the house (installed house numbers, chopped the 10ft hedge that obscured the house from the street, painted the mullions in the big bay window, painted the front door, weeded, etc etc) but we know we have miles to go before we sleep.  More on that in a soon-to-come post.

In the meantime, meet my new friends on the back deck:

Juniper spiral topiaries!  On the hunt for the right pots.  Onward and [outdoors]ward!