Well, this house isn't done with me yet. I...well...I am losing ground in being the "alpha" owner.

The front door has been harder and harder to open. Summer time is just plain awful, with last summer my having to lift the door and push it back against the hinges to open and close it. I was, however, quite relieved when it got better over the winter. But believe me...that was a case of false hope that replacement could be avoided.

A few weeks ago, the door jam cracked from top to bottom on the inside. I knew when I first saw the crack that there would be no turning back for me. The crack has only widened.

Last summer, I tried screwing in the hinges and the piece of wood to which the hinges were attached as a stop gap measure. But the screws just turned and turned without catching anything. My friend's husband feared rotten wood...or worse...termites! I preferred not to think about it.

Well, I called the most wonderful, godly handyman who installed my gable vent fan last summer (changing my life in the process since I am so much cooler in my bedroom in the summer now) and asked if he could replace a door. The quotes I had gotten were averaging $1,500, not including the repair work I suspected was necessary because of those screws.

He came over to look at the job and determined that we really needed to pop off the trim to get a look at how the door was attached. [Engineers beware; reading further may be hazardous to your mental health!]

The reason the screws were just spinning was neither rotten wood or termite damage. The simply spun because there was nothing to which they could attached. There is just open space! To top that, the reason the door has shifted so significantly is that the hinge side is held up only by a piece of 1 x 3 wood! The handyman has MUCH work before him.

Tomorrow I shall go to Lowe's and order a door.

The house has won again.