Small Fixes: Changing the locks!

Project 1 as homeowners: change the locks!

I don't feel like we had a great relationship with the seller. More than that, I don't feel like the tenants (our house was a rental) had a great relationship with the house. I went to the house a few hours before closing just to make sure that it was empty - we really didn't think they were going to move out!

With that in mind, I bought all new locks for the house before closing so that we could install them as soon as the house was ours.

You CAN remove the locks, take them to a home improvement store (like Lowe's or Home Depot) and have them all rekeyed. The problem with that is that for the hour or so that you're getting them rekeyed there are no handles or locks on the exterior of the house. I wasn't ok with that (see above about sketchy tennants). So I bought new ones.

And I overspent on a new front door lock and handle because I think that it will look awesome on the door that we will replace this one with some day. (I also think the door should open the other way and that it should be painted a fun color, but that's a much larger project!)



Cost: $250
Cost if I had reused the locks: $45 ($5 per lock)
Time: About 1.5 hours