DIY FTW

We have once again reached the end of a school year. As a teacher, I'm so eager and grateful for the break from the intensity that spring semester brings. As a parent, I'm excited to have my kids home without a schedule, so we can play and do whatever we want. I'm also faced with the inevitable disbelief that they have reached yet another milestone. I'm one short year away from having two children in elementary school! Sheesh.

As the summer break stretches before me and my grades have been recorded and jury sheets read and filed, I begin to feel the seesaw shift. The pressures and concerns of academia slowly become hazy memories and home life comes into focus. All the house projects that have been culminating suddenly become a priority now that my work hours lessen.

And while the sudden shift is welcome, I find it to be extremely disorienting: I constantly feel as if I'm forgetting to do something or be somewhere. So then I add project upon project until I'm almost busier than when I was teaching and am completely exhausted in a different way.

One of the projects on my to do list has been to repair a bunch of the screen windows in our house. There were holes in 11 of them, some from my eldest child's itchy fingers, some from the workers who redid the siding last summer, and some from the wear and tear of being 20 years old.

I headed to our local ACE store, to scope out the situation. Let me just say, the people who work at our local hardware store are amazingly helpful. They showed me the tools and materials I would need. I had planned to buy stuff right then and immediately get started. Apparently, there are some different sizes of materials and they encouraged me to go home and actually take out the old screens before starting the project. I also found out that they could replace the screens for me, starting at $10.99 a screen. Don, the screen guy, encouraged me to come back with my old screens to the shop in the back and he would get me all straightened out.

So, several hours later, I had a trunk full of hole-y screens and was watching Don work on one of the orders that had come to the shop. He let me watch the whole process from beginning to end and then helped me figure out what size spline my frames required. It was like having my dad here to walk me through it.

I decided to try it out myself. I'm so glad I did because it was one of the easiest, most satisfying home improvement projects I've done in awhile.

For a smallish screen (2x3 or so) ACE will replace the mesh for $10.99. The price increases as the screen gets bigger. I had 11 screens of various sizes, that needed to be replaced and I estimate that it would have cost me between $100-$150 to have them do it for me. I paid about $70 in supplies and fixed all 11 screens in about an hour and a half.

So, in case you'd like to do this yourself, here's what I did:

One of my old screens.

First you pull out the old spline.

Then you pull out the old mesh.

Then you lay the new mesh over the frame and cut it with scissors, leaving about an inch of overhang on all sides.

Then using this great roller tool, you push the spine into the frame, securing the mesh. You have to be careful not to pull the mesh too tightly, or the frame will get bent out of shape. Other than that, it's pretty straight forward.

Using a box cutter, trim off the excess mesh.

And that's it, you're done!

I've now got hole-free screens throughout my house and a wonderful feeling of self-satisfaction.

On to the next project!