Demolition Continues

Theivery

We lived in Mesta Park for 6.5 years and never once had a criminal incident occur with us or our property. We did have a couple near incidents, once when I was in Kansas City on business, whereby Christa came home to a gentleman sitting on our porch. He then asked for money to buy milk for his kid... And then there was the time that someone stole something out of the bed of a pickup parked in front of our house. But Christa watched that happen and called 911 immediately. "Hello, I just saw a guy on a bicycle steal an air compressor and a skill saw". "What's he look like?" "He's a guy on a bicycle with an AIR COMPRESSOR and a skill saw, duh."

Some time between Tuesday at 11:00 pm and Thursday at 9:00 pm, our patio furniture was taken out of our backyard/back driveway area. The furniture was not at all visible from the street, which makes this even more disheartening. I thought I saw it at the house even on Wednesday night, but I can't recall for sure. No matter what, we're disappointed.

The furniture being gone isn't the biggest problem here; it was a gift from my parents, so that hurts, but it was getting small and we needed to upgrade anyway. By far the worst part is the emotional feeling that someone's been around and been in our space and looking at what we've got to steal.

If you're out and about yard/garage sale shopping this weekend and you happen to see this furniture, let me know and I'll come by and swoop it up. :)

Tonight/tomorrow I'll be installing some temporary security lighting with what little electricity I've left on in the house. And I'll be locking what small stuff we do have in the house even more tightly... I have been taking my nice tools with me every night just in case, so "yay me" on that.

Maybe I'll starting camping in the backyard every night. Mom, dad, can you bring the pop-up camper down here ASAP?

By the way, kudos to the Oklahoma City Police Department for their speed today in filing my report. I called the non-emergency number at 8:49 am, and at 9:00 am an officer called to take the full report. I'm sure, had a I elected the option, my meeting with an officer at the house would have taken much, much longer. This option was quick and easy.

Everyone Has Something to Say Part 2

As Paul put it so well in Part 1 of this installment, we've received a lot of nose crinkles and unsolicited advice on our new to us home.

Yesterday, while I was at the dentist office having my teeth cleaned, the dental assistant gave me all sorts of advice on what to do in my new home. Paint colors to pick, the number of shower heads to install (I'll spare you her gross story), flooring selections, and on and on and on. Her color scheme recommendation for the master bedroom you ask? Red, black and white of course, because it's "spicy".

Five minutes after that one sided conversation was had (while I sat and smiled nicely) she asked what I did for a living. I responded without any hint of smugness in my voice.

Even so, we both sat in silence for the rest of the cleaning.

Everyone Has Something to Say

I suppose it goes without saying; choose to renovate an old house, and everyone you know, plus those that you really don't know, will give you advice.

So, first off, thanks everyone for caring so much about us! I say that with 75% sincerity, 25% jest. Among the 75%, my old Historic Preservation co-worker/supervisor; the wonderful company that did our asbestos abatement and who also happened to have tips on working with the plaster and insulation; our insulation/HVAC contractor; and our roofing consultant. There are so more that could be thanked.

The other 25%, well, they can have their opinion, but I wish it would remain inside their heads. For those that see us regularly, and especially those that have worked at the house with us already, it comes as no surprise that I'm attributing the 25% to generally one person. But that person has really caused me to go out of my way to be a nice man instead of flying off and making an enemy out of a new neighbor. It doesn't help that he "owns" the houses on either side of us (I use quotes because the County Assessor does not attribute ownership to him on one house, although he uses and claims it as his own).

This nice (to our face) gentleman has owned homes in the neighborhood for over 30 years, and yet they appear more dilapidated and run down than our home. Our home, mind you, was completely unoccupied for at least 3 years, possibly up to 6. Taking renovation advice and passive aggressive "oh, you're doing that?" comments from this person has been an exercise in displaying (and believing in) Christian love for one of God's creatures.

Thanks for taking the time to read my rant... sometimes, one just needs to express their frustration to the world and let the feelings out.

Design: The Kitchen

The potential for the kitchen in SIX TWELVE was one of the driving factors for purchasing the home. In the kitchen alone there are six windows (letting in tons of natural light); and the room is just plain sizable. Since it was in such bad, grease covered, 50's remodeled shape when we purchased the home, there was no internal qualm about gutting the room and creating something just for us.

If there's a room that drives design and inspiration around our house it's the kitchen; so I figured this would be a good place to start based on the fabric I had already found.

The kitchen design came together quickly (relatively unusual for us).

Here's where we're starting to get that mix of styles, the board makes it look modern, but with the window bench and some other key elements, we'll be scaling back the modern vibe. Remember our mixture of concerns in designing a house? All of those things add up to a pretty serious mixture of traditional/modern/industrial that will end with either really, really bad or really, really good results.

1. Quartz Counters from Cambria (in Snowden White).

I am in love with this material. We prefer lighter counters but marble is such a tremendous amount of upkeep and granite doesn't get bright enough for us. Cambria is only available through specifiers (designers & architects), specific account holding showrooms or fabricators. I like that we have something different, that not just anyone can buy at Home Depot. Not knocking the HD at all. 90% of our remodel will have to be off the shelf from those types of stores to stay within our budget. But I'm thrilled that an item as large and as impactful as the counter will be somewhat unique to us. We're hoping to do a full height apron on both sides of the island. Swoon. "Hoping to" are the operative words there.

2. Subway Tile  

We're going to use USCT bright white subway tile for our back splash. For one, we had a couple of boxes leftover from our last installation and two, we LOVED it at our last house. This time however, we are installing it floor to ceiling (maybe all four walls). If it goes on one wall, it will be in a herringbone pattern (as shown). If it makes it's debut on all four of the walls? We'll be sticking with the standard running bond (based on the fact we're doing our own tile installation and an entire room of herringbone might be the death of us). 

3. Cabinets

Oh the cabinets. The cabinets are going to be some form of green. I mean, who would have thought?! We were on the hunt for some lovely french gray cabinets when we stumbled across this style/color in a local showroom. We both immediately mentioned it, that it would work well, and that it would be kind of a fun alternative. I think it's going to be awesome. We haven't selected a vendor/manufacturer yet. We're working on getting our quotes and each of the manufacturer's blue/greens are slightly different but would all work well.

4. Artwork/Color

One day, I will have enough money to have Michelle Armas paint something just as beautiful as this piece for my kitchen.

5. the Meat & Potatoes

As for the appliances, faucet and sink, nothing has been decided on quite yet. We have quite a few options but are slowly starting to narrow things down. For example, we are 100% committed to a single basin sink. We installed one in our last kitchen and I had no idea how much I loved it until we got into the apartment with your standard 50/50 sink. I cannot wait to wash Addison's high chair tray (or Addison for that matter) and fill a pasta pot in a deep singular basin again.

We're also pretty set on going with a double oven. We love to have people over (lots of people), and we love to cook. One day soon, I hope to host Thanksgiving or Christmas for my entire family and being able to cook multiple dishes at different temps is going to be killer. We'll have a gas cooktop in the island with a hood (also all yet to be determined) a dishwasher, a tucked away microwave and a refrigerator. Am I the only one that gets giddy about new appliances? We're looking to save some money here so we'll be buying last year's models in hopes to save a couple grand. 

6. Porcelain Floor Tile

We will be using a 12" x 24" striated gray porcelain tile. It is manufactured by FlorimUSA and is called Layers in the color Sediment. That's exactly what it looks like and it is beautiful (even more so in person). You'll notice a certain love for geology running through the rest of the house. What can I say? I'm addicted.



The kitchen when we purchased the house.

During cabinet dis-assembly and removal.

Walls being removed!!



With the kitchen demolition nearly complete, it's really starting to solidify our design and our excitement/anxiousness.

The cabinet and quartz orders are coming up in the next few weeks and then it will really be getting serious!



Project Update: Month 1

It's already been a month since we purchased SIX TWELVE. Seriously, where does time go? Here's what we've been up to:

Demolition continues. We're starting to get to the point where it will be wrapping up soon but there's still a lot to do.

General Project Update
Schedule: So far we are still on track to be finished by the required six month deadline.

Budget: We still have money left, so that's positive. In all honesty, we're slightly behind thanks to the asbestos, but we had a 10% contingency built into our financing. The cost for abatement fell within that amount, so technically we aren't behind at all.


Paul's Update
Exhaustion Level: Tired after every time I spend working on the house, but not overly exhausted. The heat wave really slowed productivity though, and working on the second floor with no open windows or HVAC has really made work exhausting.

Stress Level: Definitely not as high as Christa’s. I’m typically a much calmer personality (unless it relates to driving… then I’m the Hulk).

Overall Feeling: Ready to get past the hidden work (demo, HVAC, electric, plumbing) and get into finishing so that we can move in. Feeling good about what I’ve done, but also know that I’m not as far as I would have thought we’d be. This week was supposed to be framing for a couple small items, but we still have a lot of demolition to do before that even begins.

Looking Back: I would have been better prepared to undertake such hard demolition. I still haven’t figured out the best system for removing ceilings; I can take off about 50 square feet of plaster/lath on a wall in about 20 minutes. I’ve yet to get more than 5 square feet of ceiling down. I get frustrated and turn to whatever wall that needs to be removed and that I haven’t yet done.

Looking Forward: Ready to get back to family and spending time at home with Christa and Addi… and getting time to study for the PE exam that I’m taking in October. Oh yeah, and HVAC and new electric in the house itself. Ready for the modern amenities to begin.



Christa's Update
Exhaustion Level:  Not all that bad. I've been pushing more paper than plaster this last month. The days I do get to help with the physical labor, it's sort of invigorating.

Stress Level: OFF THE CHARTS

Overall Feeling: Pessimistically optimistic :)

Looking Back: I would have better prepared myself for the amount of time that I was either going to be without my husband or without my kid. I think I had an idealistic view of how renovation projects used to go for us. Both of us in the thick of it working together not worrying about the amount of family time we were giving to each other or to our daughter. It's been a tough struggle to balance our home with our home life.

Looking Forward: HVAC! Oh, how I look forward to HVAC. The weather has been brutal and a stagnant house in this heat has been miserable. The upstairs is at least 15 degrees warmer than the downstairs and when you're talking about NO air at all - it's just, gross. A conditioned space also means it's time for finishes which means FUN.

Design: The Direction

I've had a vision for SIX TWELVE from the day we looked at it. A blurry vision. Nothing really jumped at me, other than our curved doors and archways. There wasn't an immediate furniture layout playing through my head or an overall design scheme just unfolding before my eyes.

It just felt right.

As a designer, I'm a mess of left and right brain. Architects are very left brain. Designers are very right brain. I am the result of a left brained individual (an architect) and a right brained individual (creative prodigy in her own way). I'm thoroughly logical and expect a sequence or for the "math" of it all to work out correctly. But I am also very right brained and can sometimes just "feel" it. It makes for some pretty intense internal debates. I'll spare you the details.

The house has so many upfront concerns (structural repair, tree removal, asbestos abatement, demolition, electrical wiring, etc.) that I've been lost in the construction and the "design" has been on the back burner. Luckily for us, the overall design of the house is somewhat already there. I just need to enhance it. So, once I was able to really sit down and start thinking about the actual feel of the house, there was a lot of that internal debate I mentioned above occurring.

We live in Oklahoma. I'll leave that as it is. It opens so many different cans of worms.
We are young and in the design industry.
We have a child and possible future children.
We have a slight taste for the modern and a slight taste for the traditional.
We have taste.
It's an old home.
We are a mess of interests and a well done design in any style appeals to us.

The worst of it all is that we are own worst nightmares when it comes to "clients". I would have already fired myself by now. And I seriously considered enlisting a friend to select everything for us. But let's be real, I just couldn't give up that much control.

With a completely blank slate, I started with this:


Kravet's Kosovo Jacobean Print

I love this fabric. It's a huge pattern repeat and has just enough of the right colors for me. And in almost ten foot single pleated drapes on a french gray wall, it could take me places. I didn't have a horrible time convincing Paul, at all actually, and so I was on my way.  
The rest of the house is going to stem off of this color palette. It'll be fresh in the spring and the summer, a little off for the fall, but can be seriously jazzed up for the winter*. It allows us to stay neutral on items like the walls, with punches of color in the furniture and casework (just wait until you see what we're doing in the kitchen) and when that one day comes (in the far off future), when we've had enough and we're ready to adjust, it won't be that difficult to get an entire new look.

*I started with silver Christmas decor when we first got married. But because the direction our last home took and the warm oak woodwork all around our Christmas tree and fireplace, we ended up going with gold and deep red, giving that "old world" Christmas flair to our holidays. Don't tell Paul, but it looks like we might be going back to the silver. Hobby Lobby and their half-off-sales and after Christmas clearance better watch it this year.

More design plans to come when I've got some time. We're seriously swamped around here with the house work, our jobs, teaching preparation, future travel, two professional tests coming up and an 18-month-old with an attitude of a 16-year-old. All of it is keeping us on our toes for sure!

Dead as a doornail

One thing we love about old neighborhoods (and hate about most new neighborhoods) is the trees. Lots and lots of big, old, beautiful trees. They make a neighborhood.

SIX TWELVE had two huge trees in the front yard. Two huge, dead trees.

One was beyond salvage. We're talking dead as a doornail.

The other was dying and rotting from the inside out. There were still some viable branches showing, but after having a certified arborist look at it, it was determined that it was also not salvageable.

A couple of quotes later (we're obsessive about multiple quotes, can you tell?) we hired the lowest bidder to take down both trees and to grind the stumps.

As it turns out, insuring your workers above a certain height becomes insanely expensive for landscape companies. Some companies do not want to pay the higher insurance rates and therefore won't even take certain jobs if they are above a certain height. Our trees were slightly on the large side. One of the quotes was close to $3,000.

The lowest was less than half of that.

I'm going to bet that the guy we hired doesn't insure his employees at the higher elevation rate but does the work anyways.

We didn't know about this insurance until after the work had been completed mind you.

You also get what you pay for. While the tree removal service was great and I'm thoroughly impressed with the results of the work for the money, the crew broke our two very large and gorgeous glazed pots. While I know accidents happen, the crew wasn't real concerned about where the falling branches were landing and could have taken steps to either move them or be on the watch for falling limbs. I had considered leaving them at the old house since they looked so great against the green/yellow walls and the blue front door but decided to take them with us in case the new homeowners didn't want to have to deal with getting rid of them if they weren't a fan of them. And now they're broken, in the garbage. We didn't spend a ton of money on them (we got them at Garden Ridge) and this gives me the opportunity to buy something to coordinate well with the new house, but it was still sad to see such pretty items go.

We've already learned a lot about how to handle these types of situations. Amazing what just a few short weeks of project management can do to ya!

But both trees are gone, the stumps are gone and now it's time to rake up and start planning for new trees, pots and landscape. The house is more prominent but also a little too exposed. Lots to consider.

Major Renovation Logistics: Planning

We've already received a lot of questions about how projects like this work. We thought we'd talk about the logistic portion of our major remodel as well as the actual remodel. If you've ever watched Property Brothers or any HGTV remodel show and have seen the homeowner buy a cheap house and then have plenty of money to renovate with, you've surely had to have asked yourselves, "Where did that 'plenty of money' come from?," or "Where do you even start?". Well, here's how we started: 

The day we placed our offer, we immediately began work to prepare for our new project.

In order to get our financing all worked out, we had to have our plan on paper. According to our financer, Paul and I are the General Contractors for the project (with our professional day jobs this wasn't that far of a stretch). But even with that being said, getting a plan on paper is a lot of work. I feel it is important to say that again. We do this type of thing for a living, and it's a lot of work and we were on a quick time frame.

We took measurements of the home, hundreds of them, and then I took a couple of days to place it into my drafting software, Revit. By the end of day two, I had floor plans, elevations, a 3D exterior model and was ready to start working on the paper work.

We plugged budget numbers into Excel daily, edited our drawings, visited cabinet shops, tile stores, placed orders for samples, requested quotes, created an organized binder and worked tirelessly to get our plan into place. We call this type of work "At Risk". We didn't own the property yet but we were spending most of our waking hours working on it and we were shelling out a couple hundred dollars here, a couple hundred there to have some evaluations done. That's risk people and it sucks when it doesn't work out and you're out the time and money. But that didn't happen in our case, at least not this time around.

I started by using an Excel File template that we use at work regularly for estimating the cost of our projects. It's typically broken up into what we call specification divisions, but since this was a personal project and we didn't need all of the divisions typically used we edited it for the purpose of our project. So here's how we broke it down into categories:

1. General & Existing
2. Concrete & Structure
3. Masonry
4. Windows & Doors
5. Plumbing
6. Electrical
7. HVAC (Heating, Ventilating & Air Conditioning)
8. Floors, Walls & Ceilings
9. Millwork & Counters
10. Equipment
11. Light Fixtures & Miscellaneous Electrical
12. Miscellaneous Items
13. Exterior Improvements
14. Basement Renovation

And within each of those categories we broke it down further. For example, under General & Existing were items like Termite Treatment, Demolition, Clean Up, Roof Replacement and Gutter Repair. And every task that was going to occur on the home had a cost associated with it. Whether it was a ballpark number, an actual quote or a best guess, it had a cost. We had already been given our amount to spend so we worked within that budget number to get all of the project accounted for. It was tricky to balance the money in the appropriate places and to determine where to save and where to spend before getting to spend even a dollar.

Then we took those estimate forms and organized our binder by the categories. Each category has a tab and all supporting documentation for that category went with that tab. Cut sheets, quotes, reports, emails, you name it, it goes in the binder. We still are using this binder and keep it up to date constantly as we plug through the stages of our project.

Once our financing was set and we we're nearing the closing and the start date for our project we created an "Actual" tab within our estimate Excel file. This way we could continue to keep track of how much we were spending/saving, based on our original estimate. I have to open this file daily. It is the bank account of our project.

The way our financing is set up, we are required to complete our project in six months. It's one of the ways that the lender protects themselves. If they allow projects to drag out too long, they don't make the money they want to make and their collateral is at risk. The quicker you complete the project, the quicker the bank has it's collateral. Well, six months is an awfully long time if you're waiting for Santa Clause to come or for the next Harry Potter movie to make it's debut but that isn't a lot of time for a construction project that you're managing yourself (while working full time jobs).

Next, we downloaded a program (for free) called OpenProj. It's the freebie version of Microsoft's Project. It allows you to plan a project based on tasks to guarantee that you are falling within a desired time frame. Based on our knowledge of predeceasing tasks and a quick scribbled calendar, we started laying out our tasks in the program. And after a couple of tweaks and re-works, we had a pretty solid schedule lined out with approximately a full month of cushion time. Then I translated it back to a standard calendar so we have both ways to view it. We must be done with our remodel by January 13, 2013. We must move out of our apartment by January 5, 2013.


We've set up shop at our apartment. We've practically eaten every meal so far as a family on the couch/high chair. The dining table has become our renovation office/trailer and since it's tucked neatly back into it's own corner in the dining room, it has worked out pretty well.

Demolition Begins

Demolition parties sound exciting. Come over for free food and help whack things apart! Pick up a sledge hammer, a pry-bar and a hammer and tear our new (to us) home apart. Later, come back and help us put it back together!

But demolition is never that easy. I failed to remember how dusty and difficult it was to tear out our plaster ceiling in the kitchen of our last home. This time around, the plaster is thicker and was installed on wire lath, not wood. The wire and thick plaster were VERY well constructed, which consequently means the walls and ceilings are VERY tough to tear out. Add in an excessive heat wave with a house with no operating windows (don’t bother asking if we had AC on – there is no HVAC system period), and the demolition job gets even tougher.

The first demolition day, 3 brave souls joined Christa and me in trying to take apart the upstairs bathrooms. We succeeded in removing the easy items – lavatories and toilets. But then came the master cast iron tub. If this tub was a claw-foot, we would have likely kept it in place; however, this was just a simple cast iron tub.

As we began demolition, we found that this “simple” cast iron tub had been built into the bathroom. The base went a couple inches below the tile floor; the sides went into the wall by at least an inch. Getting the tub out of the bathroom and down the stairs required 2.5 hours of our collective effort. In the end, we were so exhausted that we left the tub in the living room and decided that the tub in the kid’s bathroom was just perfect in its place and only required a refinishing.

We took it relatively easy in the days following the bathroom demolition. I tore out some built-ins in the kitchen and got ready for more thorough demolition. Our biggest night was spent tearing out the carpet and pads in four rooms. Thankfully, only one room of carpet was really cat-urine soaked and smelly. I don’t think I could have done all that we did in that heat if they had smelled as bad as that room. Removing the carpet revealed the wood floors that we were guessing were in good shape. We were generally correct – only one room will require a lot of extra work, mainly because the previous owners used the wood floor as a paint guard when repainting the room before carpeting it.

This past Saturday, 3 different brave souls (is that because it was so hard the first weekend? J) joined us  to start the real “fun” demolition: taking down the walls and ceilings in the kitchen. We began with this:

And ended with this:

Unfortunately, due to the heat and the effort involved in removing plaster on wire lath, we didn’t get as far as expected. I suppose that’s always part of a large-scale home renovation project. Sunday I spent more time at the house by myself and removed all of the old, bubbled paneling in the “bonus room” and busted a hole in the wall between the bonus room and the kitchen. Soon the two rooms will be joined to allow free flow between.

Whacking away with a sledgehammer is manly fun, but in this heat, it’s brutal. I’ve been drinking about 2 water bottles and 2 Gatorades per 3 hours, and I still feel beat. Breathing in this heat is made worse by being safe – wearing respirators and safety gear adds to the difficulty, but it’s worth it. Work like this is not for the faint of heart, and I’ll definitely feel better once it’s all demolished. After I get it done, I’ll write a follow-up post to share my do’s and don’ts for this type of work. My Google/YouTube search was only marginally helpful in finding out the best ways to do what I’m doing.

DISCLAIMER: We are not professional home builders/carpenters/journeymen. This is a blog about how we are undertaking a large home renovation project. We make no promises about any information we present – we are just do-it-yourselfers sharing our experiences. If you undertake a similar project, please make yourself aware of safety procedures and local codes. Keep in mind that you are on your own.

Lock it Down

When we bought SIX TWELVE, we considered ourselves lucky that no one (i.e. a transient) was living inside. While it wasn't open to the public, it wasn't exactly a "secured" property.

The front door was not accessible from the exterior but it wasn't actually locked on the interior (uh?). The side entrance from our covered porch into the living room was secured with only a padlock and I don't think I ever even tried or went through the backdoor.

Thankfully, our new neighbor kept a close watch on our property while it was for sale and was paying attention to every person and animal that went on the premises.

But, the minute the closing was complete and we we're allowed to spend our money to remodel the house, we knew that new exterior locks and hardware sets were to be the first item on our agenda. While we aren't planning to work on the doors (paint, etc) until later in the project, we didn't want to begin work, or store anything in the home until we felt it was secure.

So off we went to the hardware store.

The problem with being in this industry is that you know that there are THOUSANDS of options available to you for THOUSANDS of products. It's almost impossible to ever pick anything (for my own home) because I know there's another 97,001 options to be explored. It's exhausting. Exterior hardware and lock sets are not to be excluded. It took us FOREVER to decide on what we wanted and to find all the coordinating items.

The Home Depot aisle we lost a good hour of our lives to.

We wanted to be able to operate all three entrances to the home with one key. Lucky for us, hardware manufacturers are getting smarter and smarter and many of them have come out with systems that allow for re-keying by the home owner. Cha-ching. Cash in our pocket. If we had hired a locksmith, this would have cost us some cash.

We went with Kwikset because their re-key technology and capabilities seemed to be vast and available on almost every product at the store. We purchased this set for the front door:

We are planning to use satin nickel fixtures throughout the house (bath fittings, door knobs, etc.) but the front door has some existing faux brackets that are black/bronze and we didnt want our nickel entrance set to stick out like a sore thumb.

For the back and side doors, we've gone with the same interior knob style (Juno) with a coordinating deadbolt (both in the satin nickel).

We installed the hardware right away on each of the three doors thanks to the handiness of Paul. We might just make it through this project if Paul sticks around. It took way longer than we had hoped it would (welcome to a remodel job) due to the existing conditions.

Original Side Entrance Hardware

Replacing Wood

DeWalt's genius tool that allows for easier installation of door hardware.
Worth the $20.00 out of our pocket.  





The new hardware on the door (consider this the pre-final).



Then we used the SmartKey tool and reworked the side and back door key to match the one for the front door. It was so simple to rekey the doors.

Funny story: Just like every other project and remodel in an old home, this project took WAY longer than expected. Not because we didn't know what we we're doing but because there we're all sorts of weird and funky things about the original locksets. It seemed like such a simple task. At church this week we talked about Christianity being "simple" and someone mentioned, "Just because something is simple, doesn't mean it's easy". Paul leaned over and under his breath muttered, "Yea, just like door locks." It took everything I had not to die from laughing. The length of time for this simple task had already become a bit of a sore spot for Paul and it was so good to hear him joke about it.

The doors still need to be cleaned up with wood putty here and there, sanded and scraped and then properly painted but we now have three doors, properly secured, without the hassle of fumbling through a key ring.

With the house fully locked down and each of us having our own key, it's starting to feel like we actually own the place.