Two Easy DIY Fixes

Our vacation home is a manufactured home.  While this is a gorgeous home it is still not built like our permanent home.  For that reason we don't want to use a lot of conventional hooks, screws and attachments.  At the same time we need hooks and fasteners so we have been looking for alternatives that will not damage surfaces but still serve the desired purpose.

The main bathroom in the vacation home is a cheater bathroom.  This is the bathroom everyone uses as opposed to the bathroom off the master bedroom.  It has a full tub with shower on one side with toilet, sink and vanity on the other.  There are two doors, one opening into the hallway and the other opening into the utility room that creates a perfect alternative walk through to the kitchen.  It's not the ideal setup if you ask me but it works.  Anyway we discovered two slight problems with this bathroom that ended up being rather easy fixes.

On of the doors hit the bathtub every time it was opened.  The easy fix was a hinge stop.  What this involves is removing the hinge pin then placing a hinge stop and replacing the pin. With a little adjustment the hinge stop (top right) prevents the door from hitting the bathtub.  This fix cost under $2 and can be easily done with minimal DIY skills.

The second problem was a lack of hooks for hanging things like bathrooms or towels.  We looked for an over the door hanger system but could not find one [note: I will bring one down the next trip] so we settled for two peel and stick heavy duty hooks.  The nice thing is these hooks solve the problem without creating a problem later.  That is one of our concerns in dealing with a manufactured home.  At any rate this solution was very inexpensive at under $4 for two hooks and need minimal DIY skills.

Sometimes when looking for a solution for a home repair it is easy to overlook the extremely easy and low cost DIY solutions.  In many cases the KISS Hypothesis should kick in.  Simple, inexpensive solutions can and do work!

Garden Gnome
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