How To Do Everything

Dear Reader,

How to do Everything From the Man Who Should Know, a book by Red Green.

I'm not surprised that the man who is the leader of Possum Lodge, Chapter 11, in Northern Ontario, would eventually get around to wrting a book. Actually Red has written a few books. Red has sooo much knoweledge in that head of his it is only natural he share it with us.

I remember Red's television show The Red Green Show, and the previous show called Smith and Smith, both were comedies, and both featured our unique brand of Canadian humor. 
Steve Smith aka Red Green was born in Toronto, yep right here, he produced the TV shows in Hamilton, he is a real hometown boy, but his heart belongs to Northern Ontario, where the Possum Lodge is.

Steve was awarded the "Order of Canada" in 2011, and continues to perform as Red Green.

This self help book is actually my first ever self help book, I received this book from Patrick for my birthday, thanks Pat. (What are you trying to tell me?)

My favorite part about this book, or rather my favorite chapter, is the chapter on hanging doors. I agree with red when he tells the reader that the single most difficult thing to do is to hang a door, unless of course you are to buy all the door pre hung in frames, then it becomes much easier, but to buy a door, then have to cut in the hinges and the door knob, well I suggest you take Red's advice.  Buy all the doors pre-hung in their frames, and then build the house around them.  It's that simple.

Speaking of doors, I did have the opportunity to hang a door recently, and I did not have the luxury of having it pre-hung in a frame, let me tell you about it.

A friend purchased a doggy daycare in downtown Toronto, called Umbrella Pet Services, everyone is helping out to spruce the place up a bit, and I was asked to put a new door on, what I call the utility area.  The building is old, not ancient, but old, made of cement and brick, with wooden floor beams reinforced with steel I beams, old.  When I first saw this door I realized that it was going to need to be changed, and this is when I started cringing, damn I hat hanging doors.
Now I have hung doors in the past, I have build cabinets requiring doors, ceder chest with doors, covers for electrical panels with doors, but for the most part, I built the doors first then build the cabinet around them, (you got it right Red).

At first glance the door opening appears to be a standard 30" wide, so a 30" wide door is purchased, and luckily it already hade the door handle holes in place.  All I have to do is cut in the hinges, hang the door and hope that the latch matches the hole in the jamb.
Before I measure and cut for the hinges, the existing door has the top 1/3 cut off, so anyone in the utility area can still look out and see the dogs, hear the dogs, and provide direction to the dogs, like, "no barking", (ya right!), and "stop chasing after Fluffy", and "no humping before lunch" (ya right!), things like that.  So I measure the door height, transfer my numbers to the new door, clamp on a straight edge for my circular saw, and begin to either ruin a perfectly good door, or hang a perfectly good door.
Yes, thank you Dear Reader, I will fill in the top of the newly cut section to maintain the strength, good idea.

Next I measure and cut for the hinges, measuring is easy, cutting them is not so easy, but we manage to get them in the correct spot, phew.  Time to mount the hinges, then mount the door, and voila, the door will not close.  What???   So I carefully measure the old door, which by the way is a complete right off, imagine a herd of 60 to 80 pound dogs charging the door, over several years, trying to get at their lunch, no, not not the employees behind the door, but the dog food that is stored there, the door is trashed, careful measuring tells me that the door is about 1/4" smaller than standard.  Dammit, now I have to cut off the hinge cutouts I so carefully made, remember that the handle hole is already in place when it was purchased, can't cut that side, OK, lets get on with it. 
I measured the opening and trying to read the tape measure with the thing curving back toward you is not an exact science, but it looks like 29-3/4", most of it anyway.  More careful measuring, clamp on my straight edge saw guide, and off comes, 1/4" of door along with my carefully placed hinge cutouts.
I put the hinge cutouts back in, only after checking to see if the door will fit, it does, now will the latch line up?

The latch lines up, after a bit of further adjustment, the door closes smooth as you like, now to reinforce the top of the door where I cut it shorter.  Here AT, the owner of Umbrella came up with a great idea, put the 1/4" piece cut off from the door edge on top of the cut section of the door to cover up the glued in inserts, and make it look nice.  Well it does look nice, and the new door has added to the overall look of the daycare.

There you have it Dear Reader, and remember, "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.

bfn Brian.