Ranch Renew: November 2012

The shiny brass door knobs had to go. Some of our knobs were brass on one side and silver on the other side, which was especially bizarre. Off to Home Depot to find new outdoor locks and get them all re-keyed. Little advice - don't try to do this on a Sunday afternoon... They were of course super busy and only had one guys trained to re-key locks, so the wait was long. When we got home and tried the key in each lock, we found out they forgot one. Back to Home Depot to convince them that going through the last few weeks of keys to find the one that matched our lock so that they could fix their mistake was not a reasonable request - they finally gave us a new one.

We hired professionals to put in the new outdoor locks and to add dead bolts. Of course - after they were done, Kyle was bound and determined to redo all of the interior knobs himself. It took him over a day to get the first one off...there was definitely a trick to it which he discovered on the second one. You have to pop off the collar around the knob, then use a paperclip/letter opener to push down on a button within a tiny hole while rotating the knob to the correct position. Then he discovered that the new latch hole was a different size then the existing hole, so back to the Depot for the correct hole saw bit. What we thought was an afternoon project turned into a week long chore, but they are all done - fhew!

The old chime doorbell was another item that we wanted to get rid of. Instead of investing in a new doorbell, we decided to find a way to cover up the eyesore. Originally we thought about finding a piece of framed art to hide the 12" x 47" inset doorbell, but then thought about having a canvas made with a picture from one of our hikes.

We looked through all of Kyle's panorama photography of trees and waterfalls and decided on dry falls. The canvas we ordered is 18" x 48" and is a welcome sight above our stairs. One more thing to check off the house to-do list! Last but not least, we removed the front screen door and took out the last of the garden veggies and planted a cover crop for the winter. Now for some pictures!