Currently Under Construction: 6/30/09 Day 2- Locks and Floors

I intended on having a locksmith come to rekey Wednesday morning at 8:45 AM but changed my mind. I was told that the vertical locks were not very predictable in that they could easily jam due to house settling. It was also possible that we would not be able to have all of the house locks on the same key if they were made by different manufacturers (which of course they are). I decided to try it myself before paying about $150 for a locksmith.

I went by my apartment to get some tools only to discover I have misplaced my cordless drill. Another trip to Lowe's. I bought another drill along with the bits needed to drill the hole in the side of the door since I would be converting to standard deadbolts. So far so good.

I started on the back of the house and successfully put on a new doorknob... but discovered I had put the locking mechanism on backwards. I had to uninstall it, rotate the lock, and reinstall the handles. Other than that, it worked quite well. Then Brett came over to help with drilling holes and adding a new deadbolt. Here's where things got interesting. NONE of the previous holes worked. Either they were too small or too far over into the door. In the end, we got 1 knob in and 1 lock in.

The floors are really starting to look good. So far they have sanded the front rooms and it looks great even with no finish.