Just a door I found intriguing
My house is determined to just grow old and ugly. At least it would seem to be that way. Replacing the doors is a lot more than just pointing to the one you want and saying “I want this one.” And I did expect to lay out some money for them. I did expect that. But we ran into problems:
—-Because I didn’t want them to disturb the unique door jams I couldn’t go with pre-hung doors. I was fooling myself. One door frame must be re-worked to accommodate an exterior door. The garage door probably should have been. They damaged the molding trying to fit it in.
—-Today I selected a new exterior door to replace the French door that couldn’t be installed because it was an interior door. I could have special-ordered an exterior French door, but, you know, I’m tired of working on this. I ordered another 9-light door (top half) just like the one that’s new on the garage door. It costs less and I can have it sooner.
—-Today, and no later, I must seal the edges of the new doors. Yes I hired a painter. No, I have to do it myself because the 48-hours allotted for the task are almost over and the painter can’t come until Saturday – maybe. I bought some sealer (1st step in the chain) to paint the edges with. I hope that’s satisfactory because I really don’t want to paint these doors myself.
—-My painter (more money) not only can’t start until Saturday/Monday, but he’s indecisive and unsure of his abilities. I know this to be a personal problem because he did an excellent – maybe even a super job of painting other parts of my house. I’ve decided to go with a MinWax stain. Now I have to call him and tell him so. No problem. He’ll do it my way – he just waits for me to tell him what to do.
—-Another painter problem – I ordered a very nice lock set for my very nice front door. The installers put it on the door (thank heavens), but now my painter is uncertain that he can paint around it without damaging either the lock or the door. He also won’t remove it while he paints. I’m going to try to bully him into it because I believe he can do it. We’ll see.
—-I have to pay extra because the door installers have to rebuild the door frame. This is not a big job, but apparently it’s an expensive one.
—-The new door frame will have to be painted. This is OK because they have to come back and fix the frame on the garage door and it will need to be repainted to. I can paint door frames, I just didn’t expect to have to do it.
I was unhappy about all of this. A supervisor at Lowe’s got involved and he very kindly gave me my bag of other items for nothing. I didn’t ask him for it, but when he offered, I took him up on it. I think there was a good $50 of things in my free bag. He’s good at customer service.
I would rather be thinking of nice things to do for my house full of company that’s coming. However, my company gave me the incentive to do what I wanted to do for a long time – replace those three doors.
I’m pretty satisfied with the way Lowe’s is dealing with this (free goodies helps). They do seem to be focused on helping me solve the problems. The installers too have done a good job, but they haven’t got the customer satisfaction thing down yet. When it’s all done I’m going to be a happy lady. If there’s any money left in the budget I’m going to . . . silly me . . . when is there ever any money left in a remodeling budget?
Marilynne
