Lesson Learned

Sit back and relax...this might be a tad long.

One of the things the new homeowners put into our closing contract was that they wanted the back door replaced.  You see, our back door is steel and scratched all to bits.  Our golden retriever likes to jump onto the back door and paw at the door - scratching the window and the door as he does so.  Then our little jack russell likes to bounce off the back door when he hears that we are home.  So, between the two dogs, our door looks a little worn on the outside.

Well, the hubs and I thought that we could easily replace the back door by going to Lowe's and buying a new door and just taking the old one off the hinges, placing the new one in it's place.  Um, no.  You see, Friday night we learned that the appraiser wouldn't sign off on our appraisal until the back door was replaced.  We had been waiting to replace the door, because we didn't want the dogs to scratch up the new one.  But, now, a week from closing, we learned it needed to be replaced ASAP.  So, Friday night, we went to Lowe's and purchased a new door.

We bring the new door home and realize that although it's the correct size, the hinges don't match up.  Crapola.  Saturday morning hubs went back to Lowe's to see if we could get someone to install the door, because in order to install the new door, the entire door jam/framing had to come down and a new one be put in it's place.  Awesome.  So, while he's doing that, I'm running around the neighborhood.  During my run, a neighbor stopped to talk to me.  We chit chat and he tells me that we can get our door from another place in town - one we never thought of.  So, as soon as hubs gets home, we go to this other place (Ridout).  Turns out they have our exact door, but it has to be ordered - it will take a week to get here and then we'll have to paint it.  Small problem - we don't have a week.  That would've saved us mucho money, by the way.

So, we go with the Lowe's installation.  The installation guy came on Monday and measured everything to make sure we purchased the correct door (we did).  He's supposedly coming back today to install the door - might be Friday, but we've got our fingers crossed for today.  Then, the appraisal can be signed off on.  Then, the new homeowners can do their final walk through.  And then, we can close on Monday and MOVE.

Lesson to be learned - do your homework WELL in advance.  This little lesson cost us an extra $225.  Not only was our door cheaper at Ridout, but we could've installed it ourselves....