New Garage Doors & House #'s!

Our garage doors!!! 

Talk about drama! I first ordered these back in July. They were supposed to be delivered by August 18th, but they ended up not being able to be delivered until September 3rd. It was ridiculous! I believe I called Lowe's at least 6 times trying to figured this situation out. I ordered them at the same time I ordered the storm door. With the storm door I was able to pick it up at the store, but the garage doors had to be delivered to our house. When I would go to the email they sent me I couldn't get any tracking info to show up. The first time I called a lady helped me and said that they were going to be delivered on August 23rd. Later than originally stated, but not bad. I was in Spokane when they were supposed to be delivered. I texted Michael because the email now stated they had been delivered. Unfortunately there were no garage doors at our house. Call number 2 was when I found out that the doors had been delivered to our local door delivery place. I was told that they would give me a call on Monday or Tuesday to schedule delivery. Monday and Tuesday rolled around and no call. Call number 3 was to try to figure out when they were going to schedule delivery. 

Since I was calling Lowe's and they weren't the ones handling delivery and they don't give out the number to the delivery company they couldn't really tell me anything. By this point I was so frustrated. How hard is it to find out when your doors are coming!!! For crying out loud they had been sitting there at the warehouse for almost a week. I just wanted my doors. Lowe's did end up refunding 10% of our order since this whole situation had been so poorly handled! 

Finally on Friday August 30th I got a call from the door delivery place saying they would be able to deliver our doors the day after Labor Day. This was not what I was wanting to hear. I had been trying to get the doors before Saturday, August 31st because that was a Saturday that we had NOTHING on the calendar. I knew that the doors were going be a big deal to put in and we would need a good chunk of time so that Saturday would be perfect. After that we weren't going to have a free Saturday until October 19th!!! I asked the lady who called to set up the delivery if I could come down there and get them from the warehouse. She told me that was fine. Praise Jesus!!! 

I cleaned everything out of the van and headed out to pick them up. At first the manager at the warehouse did not think that the doors would fit, but I had measured and knew they would. I love my Honda Odyssey!!!!

On Saturday morning Michael got to work removing the old doors. The manager who loaded the doors into the van said that the directions were in the box. Yeah the operating instructions not the actual instructions for how to install them. I ended up going online and trying to find the instructions. I could not find them on their website like they said you could, but I found two different ones and printed them both out. 

Of course both instructions say that installing garage doors is extremely difficult and should only be done by a professional. Challenge accepted!!! :) 

The new doors even came with new tracks. I didn't know that...I literally thought they were just the doors. Not sure why I thought that...it's silly now that I think of it. I was even shocked that they came with the springs. I thought I was going to have to buy those separately. Yay for being surprised. One thing that I was really worried about was the hardware. The reviews for these doors on Lowe's website weren't the best. To be honest the reviews for any garage doors weren't the best so I just had to bite the bullet and go for it. The number one complaint was there was hardware missing. There was even one review that recommended that you order one extra door just to make sure you get all the hardware and then return the door you don't need. Umm....no I'm not doing that. 

Thankfully when I picked up the door the manager went through the checklist with me about everything so I felt super confident that we had everything we needed. 

Once Michael removed the old door and started on the new one I tried to stay out of his hair. He spent a lot of time doing this! He would go back and forth from one set of instructions to the other one. I did go ahead and organize all the screws and bolts for him. I also went around the yard weeding and cutting out sticker bushes. After that I was feeling pretty rough. This was right in the thick of my infection under my root canal. In fact that morning I had to call the emergency number for my dentist so he could call in stronger pain meds since ibuprofen wasn't cutting it at all. 

After worked in the yard I went upstairs and just laid in bed resting. I knew that Michael was having a hard time and I figured he was going to finish one door and call it good, but he kept going and got the whole job finished. He did change out the track from the old to the new one for the first door, but the next door he did not...he used the existing track and that made it so much easier. Since I wasn't feeling good I didn't go out to see it until the next day. 

I love them!!! 

I'm so happy to no longer see the yellow doors! I have wanted windows in our garage doors for years now. Our garage is so dark! Having those little windows has made such a difference. I can't wait until the trailer gets put away so I can take a full picture of the house and it won't be blocking that one door. 

Side Note: We are going camping one more time in October so we aren't putting it away until after that. Plus I have a little makeover in mind for the trailer so I figured putting it away before doing that would be silly! 

Once the pillars were done it was time to put up our house numbers. Michael was going to do that when I was in Spokane, but he just didn't like the look of them on the pillars. I went to Lowe's to buy new numbers since the old ones weren't really our style anymore. I took a few pictures to text them to Michael. 

Of course the ones I ended up wanting didn't have any 2's so I had to go to a different Lowe's to buy them. 

The corner section of our fence next to the driveway is angled...Michael thought it would be a perfect place to put the numbers. 

Ta Da! 

They aren't actually pushed all the way into the fence. They stick out a bit to give it more depth. I absolutely love them. I did buy a floodlight to shine on it at night, but since they do stick out it was casting a funny shadow that we didn't like. Plus when you are driving at night your headlights will light them up so people can see the address just fine!