Rim Lock Cock Block

The cold front and the accompanying rain killed my exterior painting plans. Then, I had house chores to do and phone calls to make and take. Since I'd spent the day psyching myself up for some real home improvement progress, I felt the need to do something. Anything.

As you may recall, we threw more than a few things together for our appraisal this summer. "A few things" would include most of the door knobs and lock sets in the Devil Queen. Aside from the fact that 90% of these never got a proper cleaning, oiling, and shellacking, they are going to need some work. The parlor door knob feel off roughly 30 minutes after the appraisal and needs to be replaced. Several rim locks don't have catches for the latch. This isn't too big of an issue except in the bathrooms. And, the master bedroom and living room rim locks are falling off the doors. Why? Well, since we were in a rush, I used the screws I had available to mount the locks. Unfortunately, these screws are roughly 1/4 an inch too short, and, as we’ve used the doors, the screws have worked their way out of their holes. The master bedroom lock is particularly bad.


Fortunately, I now have the right sized screws. So, since I was feeling ambitious last night, I though I'd fix this master bedroom lock at the very least. I figured that screwing in a couple of screws would be pretty easy, and it should have been. However, it helps if you have a screw driver. And, since I'm a narrow minded guy, I wanted a Phillips screwdriver for my Phillips screws. No such luck. Since our shit-in-storage has exploded all over the parlor and main hall, finding anything smaller than an armoire is impossible. I'm nearly as stubborn as I am incompetent, so I refused to accept defeat. I improvised.

At this point, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then, as I finished mounting the first screw, I had a thought: "Maybe you should just go ahead a finish properly refurbishing the lock before you remount it for all eternity. What do you think?"

Son of a bitch. So, I left the damn thing hanging as-is and went to bed utterly unfulfilled.

Maybe I'll have better luck tonight?

A Knob, a Hole, and a Door but No Answers

Here is one of the many unfinished Devil Queen projects.



This is our closet door in the master bedroom, and, aside from the coat of white paint, it is pretty much exactly as we found it. Note the hole where a tragically 1980’s doorknob resided. While I can’t say that I miss the cheap knob any, the hole does pose a problem.



I figure our possible solutions are as follows:

1) I go online and find a modern reproduction knob that will nicely fill the hole.
2) I try to ignore the hole and mount a rim lock over it.
3) I patch the hole, paint the patch, and install a rim lock over it.
4) I patch the hole and install a different sort of lock & knob like a mortis lock, etc.

I’d considered installing this lock, but the door is 1 ¼ thick and the knob can only fit a ¾ thick door. Actually, I have to wonder to what kind of door this would go. I haven’t seen too many ¾ doors. Maybe it goes to a cabinet?