First you are correct about the fact that if you want to lock up the brakes you should be able to do that. The parking brake when you try it should be able to lock up the rear brakes and slide the wheels. So the question arrises, why can't you? First check. Pump the brake pedal about five times and hold it, memorizing how much pressure your placing on the pedal, and how far from the floor the pedal is. (You can use your other foot for a gage if you want to). Now release the brake pedal and wait about ten seconds. Step on the pedal a single time, using the pressure that you think you did when you held the pedal a few moments earlier, and see how high the pedal is from the floor. Is it exactly in the same place? Is the pedal lower? Memorize the pressure your applying, and the height of the pedal, and quickly pump it three times, and see if the pedal height changes. If the pedal ended up at the smae point each time, then your adjustment of the rear brakes is correct, and you don't have any air in the system. If the pedal height incresed when you pumped the brakes, then you could either have an adjustment situation, or still have air in the system. Next step. Apply brake with same pressure as before. Without releasing the pedal, start the engine. Vacuum from the engine should cause the booster to begin to assist you in applying the brakes, and you will feel the pedal fall from your foot. Maintain the same pedal pressure, and see how much further the pedal travels. It takes some experience to feel when this assist is sufficient, but at least you can tell if you indeed have assist or not. A bad booster, or vacuum problem will only give you about an inch or less of pedal travel increase. You will need to investigate the cause if you don't get a good assist. The next possibility requires an assistant. Put the car up on jacks and jackstands with all four wheels off the ground. Put the transmission in neutral. Pump the pedal three to five times to bleed off booster vacuum. Now have an assistant start to lightly press on the brake pedal while you turn the LF wheel by hand. Keep telling the assistant to increase pedal pressure slowly until you cannot turn the wheel with a moderate effort. have the assistant memorize the pedal travel at that point. Release the brake pedal, and repeat the process at the right front wheel. Now do it again for both of the rear wheels. The pair of front wheels should take the same pedal travel, and the rear wheels will each take slightly more than the front in most circumstances. All four should not need to have the pedal pushed more than half way before you cannot turn the wheel. Having made all of these checks, and not making any errors, you are now faced with the likelyhood that you have glazed linings, or at least linings with poor friction characteristics. All of the linings, the rotors, and drums may need replaced on a vehicle this old. Remember to include the hardware for the calipers, as well as the brake shoe hold down, and return springs (Maxipack). Make sure that if you replace the pads and shoes, use top of the line components, thats the only way your going to make sure you have something that should perform correctly. If all of this looks like a lot for doing something as "simple" as brakes, ""you aint seen nothing yet"". Lock-up charateristics, and point of lock-up are aspects that even as techs we normally do not have to concern ourselves with because normally the cars are engineered well enough that they almost always work. We only run into problems like that when we are dealing with improper materials, contaminated materials or the very rare, failed proportioning (or combination) valve. We actually have tools available that allow us to remove the bleeder screws, and directly measure the brake fluid pressure. Some shops have tools that fit in the caliper in place of the brake pads and rotors, in order to measure the systems ability to squeeze the pads and rotors. All in all it can be extremely complex especially when we have to deal with the opposite complaint of an early lock-up, or an antilock brake issue which essentially adds an entire system on top of everything else I have already mentioned here. I hope this helps. If there is any doubt, take it to a real pro to have this checked.

I purchased new door hardware for each interior door in our house when we moved in here in 2005, as both my father-in-law and I had arthritis and difficulty with turning knobs. I changed our doors to lever hardware. One has failed. I went back to Lowes to get a replacement, and the styles have changed. I have not contacted Kwickset, I am not sure it is worth it to try and find replacements for these super-cheap doorknobs. Maybe the knob styles don't vary as much as the lever styles do, but I would not trust that any particular style or model is going to be available for more than a few years. Just as Renovator8 gets a replacement set for his exterior door, I would suggest getting an extra interior door set. Having the "insurance" of a free replacement won't help you if the models have changed in the meanwhile. Since you are replacing existing door knobs, try doing it yourself. The hardest part is getting your tools together and opening the packaging. Pull up a video on You Tube. It really is an easy job.

Thanks for the suggestions. I crawled under there and checked out the mechanism. Theres two levers, one on each side of the center drawer that are engaged when you close the drawer. These levers are mounted to a rod that goes through the wood and moves a rod up to engage the hook on the back of the drawers. It takes a fair amount of force to move each of these levers. One thing I noticed there is a spring on each of the levers, pulling it in the opposite direction, most likely to assist with unlatching the drawers when the center drawer is opened. These springs look like they may have been added by someone because the drawer lock mechanism was sticking and not allowing the other drawers to open. I suspect this because one end of the spring is fastened to the wood with a nail. I doubt the manufacturer would have used a nail here. I'll try to remove the springs and see how things work then. Looking at the mechanisms, just the center drawer opening should allow the levers to drop back down allowing other drawers to be opened.

Did it get into carpeting or something? I've never heard of coffee smell remaining on hard surfaces. Coffee spills all the time in restaurants, and I've spilled coffee more than once in the kitchen. Personally I can think of far more offensive odors than coffee but that's a personal thing I guess. The smell will probably dissipate over a short time but charcoal, vinegar, vanilla extract (pure), baking soda and/or unscented candles will help with odors. Vent the room too. Or just use a cleaner on the desk, wipe with a vinegar solution or something. If it's coming from the desk that should take care of it. Otherwise you'll have to track where the smell is originating.