Replacing a Door Lock

We moved into this house after my parents moved out. Although they left a whole cupboard full of keys none of them would fit the side door into the garden. For 8 years now we have been going in and out of the french windows in the dining room, including leaving footballs and gardening equipment and dirty shoes in there, on the premise that the key was bound to turn up one day so there was no point calling an expensive locksmith !

Finally, yesterday Mr Shoestring decided that SOMETHING must be done ! In the end he decided that the best thing to do would be to lever the pins out of the hinges on the door and then get me to help him lever the locked part of the door out of its socket.

After a bit of banging and levering with a chisel the door hinge pins were released and so was the door. Mr Shoestring was able to unscrew the old lock and go and buy an exact fit new lock for 23 pounds. I thought that this was rather expensive until he explained to me that calling out a locksmith would have cost 135 pounds and that would be before the cost of a replacement lock or any work to re-fit the door.

We are enchanted by the new door, with a lock ! We keep going in and out of it and exclaiming how marvellous it is. I have cleared out of the dining room all the gardening stuff ! We are delighted to have been able to do this big job for so little and I know think that Mr Shoestring is a genius !!