Richard Felt: The Project Domino Effect (and New Front Door Hardware)

***Overshare post alert*** Some time ago, I replaced my front door handle and deadbolt.

There are a number of reasons why this was a good idea at the time, but there’s one that still makes me laugh to this day as one of the strangest (and yet, still oddly logical) reasons to replace something in my home: I got tired of really, really needing to pee.

You see, the old deadbolt key was getting twisted and stuck nearly every. damn. time. I came home from work and unlocked my front door. In order to get the key to work, I had to wiggle it just right. The deadbolt would eventually catch, the door would be unlocked, and all would be right with the world.

Except, many more times than I would like to admit, I would get stuck in traffic on my drive home from work (it is Atlanta, after all — home of some of the most insane traffic jams ever). And even though I didn’t really think I had to use the bathroom when I left the office, by the time I got all the way home, things would be… considerably different. My bladder would sometimes be so full that I’d need to do that dumb little dance while praying for the door to release its death grip on the interior pins within the lock, and I’d be muttering under my breath, “for the love of God, damn you! TURN! TUUUURN!”

(There were other good reasons for replacing the hardware as well, such as the fact that I only had one really old front door key and it was almost too twisted to even fit in the lock, but the pee-pee dance story is just way more funny and embarrassing.)

Anyway, I picked out a new deadbolt and handle to match the other nickel exterior hardware. And not only am I no longer working on my peemergency dance moves in front of my neighbors anymore, but I have been enjoying another funny, unexpected perk: instead of needing a free hand to turn the handle, I can use my elbow and shove the door open with a nudge from my hip. It may not seem like much, but when you might need to pee and you’ve got two armloads of groceries? Magic.

I didn’t reveal the new door hardware at the time because it was one of those domino effect projects: fix this, change that, and then realize that there are two or three other things that you really should take care of to have a more complete update about it. But then, months pass, you ignore the little things around it that irk you, and the project sort of hangs on the to-do list indefinitely.

After staring at my door like this, every day, for months, I finally got frustrated enough to just fix what was bugging me. Thanks to the different sizes between the original and replacement, a sliver of the old red paint from the original door color was peeking through around the deadbolt, and I had reached a tipping point between putting it off for one more day and being tired of this little reminder still being on my to-do list. Perhaps it was all of the exterior updates surrounding the door. Perhaps it was knowing exactly where the paint was from having organized my garage this year. But all it took was a little paint brush to finally attack that little sliver of red paint. So I did. And I moved on.

Or so I thought. A few days later, I then noticed that by having painted the area around the new handle and deadbolt, the sheen of the dark blue paint on the rest of the door had dulled a little. I could have ignored it, but I knew it would eventually bug me like the red paint did. So I whipped out a regular paint brush, cleaned the door, and repainted nearly all of the door wherever I saw a dull sheen.

I then noticed several old gouges in the trim next to the handle. I’m not even sure why this area had been notched out originally, but using some quick-dry wood putty to rebuild the corner took care of it in no time.