Hard to believe there isn’t tons of good advice on the web about painting drop ceilings.  I can’t be the only one stuck with them.

But I had to delve deeply into the internet to find a blog by a sweet Canadian woman who’s fixing up her townhouse on a tight budget.  She had a great tip — prop the tiles up slightly with a pair of long sticks — she used packages of furring strips — then paint the edges while they’re raised.  Then drop them down and use a roller to paint the centers of the tiles.

I don’t have any boxes of furring strips, but I will be buying narrow long lumber to repair door frames.  With something on the end to prevent puncturing the tiles — I’m thinking, tennis balls — it will sure save time if it works.

Thanks, Tanya, at http://dans-le-townhouse.blogspot.com/2012/04/basement-update-lazy-guide-to-painting.html

Hanging my first door, hearing it close with a successful click, was a major thrill. It couldn’t have been an easier door to hang, but it was still soo satisfying.

Cost: $21 at Lowes for a 24-inch hollow unfinished flat surface luan interior door. What I used to pay a contractor to hang a new door varied, but anywhere from $50 to $150, guesstimate.

For an expert the job would have been a no brainer because the old broken door was right there with the knobs in place. There was no trimming required, I had the three hinges and the door frame was fine with the striker plate in place. It was just a matter of exactly copying the hinge cutouts and the holes for the knobs.

Even so, I sweated it. And I didn’t have the perfect tool for the cutouts. I laid the old door on the new door and marked the location of the hinges, then traced the semicircular hinge on the door edge. I could see that the prior contractor used a tool that cut the exact shape and depth of the hinge in one fast move. I found out later the thing to use is a router with a hinge template, which I guess I should invest in since I have 32 interior doors among those four student ghetto units and some years more than half of them get smashed. The door frame often breaks along with the door, but that’s another chapter.

I did my hinge cutouts with my multi tool and a chisel — outlined the cut with the multi tool and then chiseled it out with small cuts until the hinge laid in there level with the surface.

I practiced four times on the old door before cutting into my pristine $21 door, which was actually pretty good looking. Really butchered the test door on the first try but each subsequent cut got closer to adequate as I learned to control the chisel.

Even so, each hinge cutout took 15-20 minutes and still looked choppy. It was hard to manage the depth of the cut. I worried that would make the door hang unevenly, but it worked.

The doorknob hole was easy — traced the old door, drilled a pilot hole and then one plunge with the right-sized hole saw from my lovely collection of new drill bits that goes with my lovely new cordless drill, a practical gift from a thoughtful friend.

I was grateful to get that drill and I’m grateful every time I drill a hole. Still, I wonder why some girls attract pretty, frivolous presents, serious bling, companions, and money, while I attract hardware. I’ve been a pretty good person; I wonder exactly which forks in the path of life sent me to this cold, solitary place.

Sometimes I wonder. Most of the time I’m just happy to have good tools.

When I got to the latch edge, again a router would have done it right. Used the 1-inch hole saw for whatever you call that part of the latch that comes out of the door knob and goes into the striker plate. With a router I could have made a shallow indentation around that hole for the plate that surrounds that thing whose name I don’t know.

As it was, I installed the edge plate on the surface as neatly as I could. It looked OK and worked fine. But I’m glad it’s not my bathroom door, where I’d see that imperfection several times a day.

You can see from the photo of the old door cutout that a router did the job perfectly and fast. I’m shopping for one. A little router you can carry around costs about $100. And a set of door templates costs about $10.

Probably should have stained the door before I hung it, but I was too anxious to see how it would hang. I drilled the nine holes for the hinge screws and hoisted it into the frame, using my toe and the handle of my hammer to level it while I turned the screws.

After the major satisfaction of hearing it close neatly without dragging anywhere on the frame, I gave it two coats of Minwax PolyShades American Chestnut colored stain/ polyurethane combo. There are so many different shades of stain on the woodwork in that place, but the chestnut looks OK.

It’s a light door, it’s a cheap door, but I gotta say, it looks as good as that kind of door can look. The job I did was just as good as anything done by the last professional contractor that worked in that place, and waay better than the crappy work done by the last couple of handymen I hired.

Shall fill in later; it was a success.

Meanwhile, here are some pix.

I am pretty excited about hanging my first door. It will be a 24-inch-wide flat hollow door on the bathroom at my student ghetto project and I have the old broken door to use as a pattern. I got the door tonight at Lowes, hauling it to the site in my old Chrysler by sticking it through the passenger window and holding it over my head while I drove. Luckily it was dark and I didn’t have to get close to anything on the right. Couldn’t do that with a wider door, and definitely won’t be able to do it with the 30-inch prehung I’m gonna need for one of the bedrooms.

Also got a 10-pack of ceiling tiles, probably about a tenth of the amount I’ll need to finish the whole place, both floors. I plan to salvage whatever existing tiles that have anywhere close to the same hole pattern as the new ones, and give both the old and new ones a quick coat of Walmart flat white wall paint.

Those two purchases blew the budget for the weekend. Looking forward to my work day tomorrow.

Did get an unexpectedly early rent payment from the new roomer at the brick house. He was supposed to move in mid-month but moved it up two weeks. That’s fortunate; his rent will cover the deposit I’ll return to the tenant moving out. And I got an email from a guy interested in that room. Life is good.

Still not crazy about the color. Used it originally to paint trim in a big white room. Having it on four walls of a windowless bathroom has a Pepto Bismol effect that a tipsy frat boy could find alarming. Kinda feminine, too — creative accessorizing will be needed if the next tenants are guys who notice such things.

But so what — I am massively impressed with the longevity of that paint. It went on good as new and looks pretty darn good for its age. Was thinking as I painted of all those years — from the time I bought this house, the whole time my son was growing up and my mom was getting old. I went through two careers, three dogs from puppies to old age, two cats, three bunnies, five cars, a couple of broken hearts — all that time, that paint was down there waiting, just keeping its shit together until it was its time to be of service

Sounds like I found an antique tapestry or some well preserved old wallpaper, but no, I’m talking about paint. Got home from the stone house in time for a board meeting of a charitable organization I’m on –because, despite my circumstances, vestiges remain of a middle class life. Lowes was closed by the time that was over. I couldn’t get ceiling tiles so I rooted around in the paint room in my basement for latex semigloss in some color other than white to paint the bathroom at that student ghetto place. Other than the bathroom all the walls in that place are wood paneling, next to which anything looks better than white. And I want semigloss so it’s easier to clean. The contractor who installed that new bathroom a couple of years ago painted it a nice mustard color; if the store was open I’d get something like that.

The storeroom had several partial cans of dark brown and one never opened can of the trim paint I used in my bedroom here at the brick house around 1987. Glidden off-the-shelf “peach chiffon” with a rusted lid and a price sticker for $11.99. Peach chiffon is more like baby doll flesh and a color I never really liked in my room. It’s been there for 26 years. Pretty sure I won’t be needing this can for any touchups. If I ever paint that room again I’m going with a new color.

I sucked off the rust dust with the shop vac and pried open the lid. It was separated, for sure, but stirred up smoothly — unlike some Walmart paint I bought two weeks ago that was unstirrable and had to be strained. Twenty-six years on the basement floor, never opened but never frozen or overheated. I’m off to doll-flesh that bathroom.