Pick-A-Day

November 2011
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  

Archives

I’m not handy with tools, and my bathroom door is… special.

While Koko was visiting, we had dinner with Snooker in Berlin (and her plus one), when I mentioned that I needed to have my bathroom door fixed.

“The hinge seems to be coming out of the wall, and consequently the bottom of the door keeps rubbing and sticking at the bottom,” I said. “I need to call my handyman.”

Snooker, knowing me well, suggested that I have Koko look at the bathroom door because, as she noted, usually you can just tighten the screws.

She is, when judging my tool-skills, absolutely right. I haven’t got a clue and I often make mountains out of molehills when it comes to repairs around the house.

The next day I remembered to specifically show Koko the bathroom door hinge, and, amazingly, she essentially agreed with me.

“You’re going to need a special tool.”

Blah – so I emailed a photo of the hinge off to my handyman, who dropped me a nice note back:

Thank you for the photo, I was afraid of this, I need to do some investigation to see if there is something I can do without taking the door frame out.

Bathroom Door Hinge

You can see it pulling out.

Life is, sometimes, too complicated.

3 comments to I’m not handy with tools, and my bathroom door is… special.

  • I’m by no means an expert either, but by the looks of it, I’d say a handman is required, too:

    1. Take the door off the hinges.
    2. See if the screws holding the loose hinge onto the door frame can be tightened.
    2a. If yes, tighten ’em up, remount the door, and he’s done.
    2b. If no (perhaps because the wood is rotten or the screwholes otherwise unusable), redrill the hinge-to-door and hinge-to-doorframe holes, remount the door, and he’s done.
    2c. Bonus: replace the hinges completely with more user-serviceable ones? I’m thinking of flush-mount hinges here. I just checked all the doors in our apartment and found them to be of the same type as yours. Meaning that I’ll be in the same boat as you if and when the time comes at our apartment.

  • MT

    We had something like that with our backdoor. The holes in the wood had been stripped out. The Coach rebuilt the wood with shaving and wood glue. It’s now good as new!

  • All the hinges in our house (built 1995) look like this too, so they must be normal German hinges. See http://dl.dropbox.com/u/132038/Unhinged.JPG

    We have a carpenter that does a lot of work for our business, so he’ll fix little things like this for us for free. Doesn’t help you, though! 🙂