Hi guys, I thought I would tell you about a funny, #not so funny, mishap I had the other day. I accidentally locked myself in my new gorgeous master bathroom while installing new door knobs. Yes, I said I locked myself in my bathroom! Not only that, but once I freed myself I proceeded to locked myself out of my master bathroom!
Let’s back track a bit and I will tell you all about what happened. Our house, as some of you may already know, is just over 30 years old. I’m pretty sure all of the door knobs are original to when it was built. They are all gold and extremely tarnished and some of them were even dented a bit. From a distance they didn’t look too bad but up close…not so much.
When we had our master bathroom renovated we added a door and obviously a new door knob. I’ve been keeping my eye out for this particular door knob to go on sale so that I could purchase some for the whole house. Finally they went on sale at Lowe’s, my favourite store. Not only were they on sale but there was a coupon for an additional discount if you order online. All in all I think I got them all for about 40% off. When you are outfitting a whole house and buying 18 – 20 door knobs, that is a great savings! I got door knobs of all kinds, passage knobs, locking knobs and several dummy knobs for the closets. Here’s my haul!
I was super excited to get these all installed. Once they were all installed I realized I didn’t like the locking mechanism on the powder room bathroom on the main level. It had a push button lock and the master bathroom door knob (purchased by our contractor) had a twist button lock. The powder room bathroom gets a lot of use (we very rarely lock the master bathroom) and needed a more sturdy locking system. So I thought I would just make a simple switcheroo. To the naked eye these two door knobs looked identical.
When you replace a door knob you can usually remove the knobs and just leave the latch part in the door. This is what the latch part looks like.
The door knob has a rod that goes into the square/diamond shape and when turned it pulls back the latch. So, easy peasy, remove the knobs, swap them out and I’m done. If only it was that easy. I removed the knobs from the powder room and the master bathroom, leaving the latch mechanisms in place. I proceeded to put the knob from the powder room into the mechanism for the master bathroom. Everything was going well. the knob is on and I close the door. I’m in the bathroom at this point. I try to open the door and it doesn’t work. I can feel that the latch is moving but it is jut not pulling it back far enough to open the door.
Now What!
A little bit of panic. Okay a lot of panic!
I wasn’t smart enough to lock my phone in with me but I was smart enough to lock the screwdriver in with me. Luckily I’m on the side of the door that has the screws in the knob and therefore I can easily remove the knob and get at the latch mechanism. I can then put my screwdriver into the little square and twist it to pull the latch back. Normally this is pretty easy to do but in this case I really had to wrench/twist to get the door open. I should have known right then and there that this was not going to work properly.
I studied the latch. Put the knobs on (without screwing them in) and twisted them to make sure the latch was pulling back properly. All was good I thought but in reality the latch was still not pulling back far enough. Put the knobs back on, screwed them in place, and closed the door again. This time making sure that I was on the outside of the door! Tried the knob….door won’t open. Crap! What the heck is going on? Good news I wasn’t locked in the bathroom. Bad news I’m not on the side with the screws so I couldn’t get at the latch mechanism. The hinges are on the other side too. Crap, crap, double crap!
Now what again?
I tried to slide a credit card in the side but because of the door stop (long thin piece of wood that runs down the frame that the door) this wasn’t possible. I needed something flexible so I cut a piece of plastic from a yogurt container. This kind of worked and I wiggled it into place trying to get it to push the latch. The latch moved but not enough. The only other recourse was to remove the door stop. I started at the bottom thinking that I could get it to come off nicely. Only it didn’t pop off nicely because the door stop and frame are all one piece! So I had to destroy it. I guess I was so traumatized by the destruction that I didn’t take a picture. Here is a picture of the pieces I ripped off…and the items I used to repair my big oopsie. I used a hammer, drill, wood glue and finishing nails.
Now I had a huge repair job on my hands. I used some wood glue and some small finishing nails to re-attach the pieces I tore off. I pre-drilled some holes before tacking the pieces on because I didn’t want to split them and create an even trickier repair job. Then I glued and tacked the pieces in place and waited a day for them to dry then I removed the tack nails.
After the nails were removed there was still quite a mess. Tons of holes and cracks to fill. I used my favourite paintable caulking, Alex Plus, to fill it all in. Wait another day for everything to dry.
It still looked pretty messy but once I got it all sanded and painted it was almost back to new. It will never be perfect but it will be a funny reminder of how sometimes a simple DIY project can take an interesting turn!
After that disaster was fixed I finally got all of the knobs installed and I love them! A huge improvement over the scratched and dented gold ones. Now I just have to wait for a sale on door hinges so I can replace all of the gold tarnished ones.
Aren’t they beautiful? It is amazing how just changing out simple hardware can really update your house. I can’t wait to get the hinges changed out as well. Hopefully I won’t lock myself in/out of any other room in the house!
Thanks for stopping by the blog today and have a great day!
Karla
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