Make Do and Mend

Fifty years ago, I'm sure this was a perfectly wonderful door. When we bought out place eight years ago, it was a decent door, just sturdy enough to keep an outbuilding securely locked up. Last summer, I started to warn the kids to be gentle with it. It was becoming more of a suggestion than an actual door.

Earlier this month it stopped being a door at all. I wasn't out there to see the fatal slam. The story is that the kid in question turned the knob to open it and it  just fell apart. There was no fixing it. It served its purpose for many, many years and now it's done.

And I was a little sick to my stomach, first at the thought of telling Hubby that we needed a new door when he's already got enough to deal with and also about what it would cost to replace it, especially when he couldn't do the job himself. There are some loose doors in the barn and back of the chicken coop, so the kids and I started measuring them. None came anywhere near the size we needed.

Wanna know what my replacement door cost? (For comparison, the last time we needed a door replaced and had to pay to have it done, it was something like $600. Which explains why I was so queasy at the thought of replacing this one!)

The new-to-us door from Habitat For Humanity Restore was four dollars. Hubby took the measurements, because I measure quilts not house parts. Teenage Daughter wrestled the remains of the old door off the hinges and got the new one up.  Teenage Son switched the doorknob from one to the other.

It's not the greatest door in the world, but it will do the job. I'm just happy that it's nondescript and not a strange color.  And that the hinges and knob went into place without any adjustments. That was dumb luck.

Have you been to your local Restore? They're a great resource for temporary fixes like this one. It's where we bought the door and windows for our enclosed porch, which are actually nice and not just a $4 fix.

I'm linking up to WFMW at We Are THAT Family.