gambling on your good luck

good bones project update:

Remodeling a house has all the thrills for me that many people get from a trip to Las Vegas.

The first time I walked by this backdoor (before I owned it), I was sure that behind this piece of plywood was a perfectly good door.  I can't explain it, I just knew.  I could imagine a number of scenarios for why it was there.  Dog scratches because some poor pooch had been locked on the back porch and bored out of its mind showed its frustration.   A domestic dispute when some meat-head tried kicking down the door and failed.  A burglar perhaps.  As far as the door is concerned, the worst case scenario would be cracks in the lower panels which looked perfectly fine from the other side. 

One day, even though it's the backdoor and low on the priority list while there are a million other things to scrape, patch, and paint, I had a head of demolition steam going and walked by it.  In my best Dirty Harry impersonation, I wielded a crow-bar and asked myself if I was feeling lucky.  

Well, do ya punk?   

Damn straight!   

It looks to me like the door had a slender kick guard at one point.  There are some shallow grooves along one part of the door under the knob, probably from the adhesive of the kick guard.  The panels have splitting paint and lots of dirt, but otherwise look great.  Yay!

It's a small thing, but these are exactly the kind of gambles you take when you buy an old house.  You look over the surface and guess that whatever is underneath is something you can handle - you can patch, paint over or replace. And whatever it is, hopefully it's something you can afford - physically, mentally and financially.  Happily, I cashed out on this one. 

To see a clip of the scene from the movie, Dirty Harry, click here.