Argh!

I'm sure the gentleman was a perfectly nice person, but he had no business using tools. I'm referring to the man, "Old Man Pete" as he was known in the neighborhood, who owned our present home prior to the couple we purchased it from. Pete did a lot of work in and around the house. But he had a particular knack for doing things backward, taking lots of short-cuts, and making step two fit whatever happened as a result of step one. The jig-saw nature of our shop / barn is a good living example of his handiwork.

My frustration at his waywardness came to a head over the weekend as I continued to chip away at the paneling in the room that used to be an attached garage. There was some very curiously placed plywood around the trim to the door leading from there into our kitchen. Not wanting to make my step five have to fit Pete's step four, I had to take the door trim off to remove the plywood. Once off, it became apparent that the trim was the only thing keeping the door in place.

In case you don't know, which you might not -- but if you're installing a door you should -- a combination of the door-frame and the wall hold the trim in place, not the other way-around. In taking the door completely down to remedy this situation, I get a brief shower from a stash of white beans that some mouse thought would make a good Thanksgiving dinner some day. And once down it becomes apparent (by looking at the manufacturer's sticker that is still on the concealed portion of the door-frame) that not only did Pete not really hang the door, he also managed to set an out-swinging door in an in-swinging position.

All is better now. The only thing left to do is to lobby congress to mandate a hand-tool competency test.