Why I hate DIY projects

“I don’t really carry around keys anymore,” Jason said.

“Oh, what about your house keys?” I asked.

“I installed the August smart lock, which replaces the back of your lock so you can still use your existing keys. It’s been great…not only do I not need keys anymore, I can also give friends access to my place when they visit.”

“Was it easy to install?” I wasn’t the most handy person, and never liked home projects in general. Having said that, the idea of being totally keyless was compelling and it seemed like a worthwhile cause.

“Yeah, it was pretty straightforward.”

I went ahead and ordered it the next day, and eagerly awaited the arrival of a keyless future. (As an aside, it is also a sign of old age maturity when you’re excited about a smart lock.)

The instructions seemed simple enough (according to the web site it takes less than 10 minutes for installation), but of course I had questions immediately after taking off the lock.

1. Was I supposed to remove the rest of this fixture thing? (“No,” Jason said, “just put the August lock over it.”
2. How come it doesn’t come with any screws? (“You should be able to reuse existing screws, everything is in the box.”)
3. What if the screws are too long? (“Are you sureee you’re not making it more difficult than it needs to be?”)

No, I wasn’t sure, but I figured, fine, I’ll go to the hardware store and get some screws. And therein lies the problem with home projects: 99% of the time it always take longer than you expect because you’re missing SOMETHING and need to go to the hardware store. I was proud of myself, though, for figuring out what length and thread the screw I needed without flagging anybody down to help me.

After getting home I tried finishing the installation with the new screw, but alas, the lock still didn’t seem to work. Annoyed, I did a little more digging and found the following blurb on their compatibility page:

Unfortunately, the front door lock I have is a double cylinder deadbolt, so I guess the lesson/reminder in all of this is that I should have read the fine print before making my impulse purchase.

“You could install a new lock on the front door, and then it’d work with the August lock,” my roommate Cory suggested.

I sighed and considered it for a few seconds. “No, I’m going to cut my losses.” It was time to move on, and my keyless future would have to come another day.

In the end I realized that maybe it wasn’t so much that I hated home projects, but that they always seemed overwhelming and I hated feeling incompetent. So even though the whole process was a pain from start to finish, in retrospect I was glad to have gone through it, if only to prove to myself that I could do it if I wanted to. And maybe I would have gotten stuck and needed help, but isn’t that what friends are for?