Today was a long-overdue day to fix some construction errors. Most important of these were the patio doors. Ever since the house was built, the French doors leading to the backyard (and now, the deck) have never hung right - the screen doors would bind at the top and bottom, and the entry doors were sticky and hard to close and lock. Paul set to fixing this today.
It took hours. First the entry doors were fixed. After much hinge adjustment he finally got to the point where they would both swing freely without binding, and were much easier to lock than previously. Then the screen doors. This proved to be a gigantic hassle that took most of the night to fix. It turns out that the opening for the screen doors was a quarter inch too small, and the result was that it was nearly impossible to mount the doors without having them bind.
Finally, he gave in and jerry-rigged the astragal (the stick between the doors that allows one of them to be fixed in place so they don't both swing all the time) so it held its door more closely, allowing enough room for the active door to swing freely. With that done, he finally (it's been almost three years) installed the pneumatic closers on the screen doors so they can't swing all the way open and bang on the lights or wall or whatever else. The sweeps still need to be installed on the screen doors too, but first some appropriate screws need to be located. That won't take long to finish. But the doors *finally* work properly. It's sure nice to be able to get in and out the doors easily, because until that was done nobody would ever want to go out to the deck.
Later he had to fix something on the deck itself. When mounting the handrail supports on the west side of the deck (the side with the stairs) he wasn't paying attention and installed them an inch too low. This showed itself to be problematic when the spindles went on - they extended so far below the rim joist that it would have been impossible to attach the frame for the lattice, so this needed to be fixed. Paul had to unscrew the handrail, then all of the spindles' bottom two rows of screws where they were attached to the rim joist. Then he unscrewed and raised the supports and put everything back together. Took about an hour, but it looks much better.
It's a pleasant night. Paul rewarded himself by sitting on the deck with the laptop and a Leinie's, listening to the tree frogs as he types this. Makes it all worthwhile. :)
