Nope! I definitely should not have done that!!!
So, let me tell a little story. In the process of building our house, there were all sorts of tasks to be done. Rich had installed a bunch of doors and suggested that I could put all the door handles on. Now I've never actually put door knobs on before, but I knew I could do it once I was shown how. So Rich suggested that I come and do the bathroom door first because that's where he was working, doing plumbing stuff.
That way he was right there to tell me what to do and answer any questions I might have. Made good sense eh?
So the first thing I did was screw the plate onto the door jam (hope I get all the terminology right!) Then he suggested I stick the whole lock thingy through the hole in the door and see if it lines up correctly with the plate that I had just screwed on to the door jam.
This is the lock thingy in the hole. Anyway, to see if it lined up properly, I actually shut the door. It seemed like the most logical way for me to see if it was lined up right. But you see, I should not have done that - primarily because I had not yet installed any door handles to open the door with!
But the good news was . . .
it was lined up properly!!!
So now we had Rich, Jas and I locked in the bathroom! I wasn't too concerned because I knew that Rich knew how to solve any problem and knew the mechanics behind any gizmo that might be causing us problems. And the rest of our family was on the other side of the bathroom door, able to fetch things he required. He called for his wallet so he could use a credit card to open the lock. We were all enthralled to watch how a credit card is actually used to open a door - but it didn't work! Not sure why - it works in the movies. Maybe we should have tried a debit card instead! (Actually, it was because there is a casing in the middle of the door jam that the door stops against, and the card could not bend around that casing.)
Then we tried taking the door off the hinges, but that didn't work either. It could not be done!
And of course Chelle got the camera to document this event, and was taking pictures of us through the door knob hole and through the door hole - the part that eventually gets covered by casings!
Rich tried to do some jimmying with the lock mechanism, but that didn't work either. You see, it's a bathroom door so it is a lockable door. I needed to turn something before putting the handles through, but obviously I didn't do any of that. So he couldn't make the darn thing open - a regular unlockable door handle would have opened though!
Then Rich had the brilliant idea to have Chelle fetch a piece of wire. His plan was to feed the wire around the latch piece (you know, the piece that moves in and out when you open and shut a door!) and be able to push/pull the latch piece in, so the door would open. Brilliant man!!! It took him quite a while to be able to thread the wire where it needed to be. And then, with all the pushing and pulling and maneuvering of the wire, it still wouldn't open!
By now we've been locked in the bathroom for about half an hour. Rich is making a cell phone call to the local fire department to come and get us out!
No - I'm just kidding about that!
But he was totally frustrated by now and was thinking that he was going to have to actually dismantle the door to get us out. He took his frustration out on the poor little wire and yanked one end of it out of the door so hard that . . . lo, and behold, . . . the door opened!
We were free!!!
And for the other 17 door knobs I installed, I was very careful to actually have a handle through the hole before I closed it, and to make sure I was on the outside of the door so I wouldn't be locked in a room somewhere, just in case something went wrong!
You know, properly installed door handles are quite delightful things. Ours are black, they all work properly, and I love them!!!
