New lock

I set out to change the front door lock on Friday and then to get a lot of other work done at the house.  Due to schedule changes, I did not get out to the house until 1 pm and only had a couple of hours to work.  But how long can it take to change a lock?  I have changed a number of interior and exterior door knobs and deadbolts in my time, so this would be a piece of cake.  I was excited to try out the Kwikset "Smart Key" that says it will let you rekey your own lock whenever you like. 

So I started with the front door handleset with deadbolt.  Surprisingly, I liked one of the cheapest version that was less than $100, so I got that one.  I took the old handleset and deadbolt off, taking care to keep them together just in case (a lesson I have learned in past).  I decided to try the deadbolt  first since that is the part with the key.  I got the handles lined up and screwed them tight.  Everything looked OK and seemed to work with the door open.  However, when I shut the door and locked the deadbolt it was very difficult to lock and impossible to unlock.  Nothing I could do would get the deadbolt to unlock.  I had to unscrew everything from the inside and still couldn't get the lock to release.  I called Kwikset and was waiting in the phone tree line when I tried using the interior bolt from outside the door while jiggling the lock when it released.  Whew!  I obviously did something wrong.  After trying to figure out my mistake and rereading the directions I tried again only to find the same result...four times. 

While waiting again in phone purgatory, I was about to reinstall the old deadbolt when I finally figured it out!  I had left the old strikeplate in the doorframe which was a slightly different shape than the new bolt.  So the lock was trying to fit into a hole too small and getting stuck.  Once I took the plate off, everything worked perfectly.  Installing the handset was not too bad except that it required a slightly larger hole in the door.  A chisel took care of that.  Long story short, the lock is installed and that is all I accomplished on Friday.

Next I will get a new lock for the back door and use that key to reset the front door so they both match.  The way the sets works is that you insert the current key 1/4 turn, then insert the rekeying tool, pull out the current key and insert the new key.  After a turn, the lock will now respond only to the new key.  The new key has to be another Kwikset key.  My plan is to buy a couple of more locks for the back doors and they have three sets of keys I can rotate in and out as needed.  What's the old saying about the best laid plans?  I'll let you know if it works out. 

Next trip out I plan to tear down a wall to expand a small bedroom into a large closet to create a new master bedroom.