After careful consideration {and lots of encouragement from you guys!}, we decided to keep the original front door. We like the midcentury style and it “fits” the house well. The door itself was in good shape – it’s solid wood and heavy, heavy, HEAVY. The only thing that had us scratching our heads was the hardware. There was a regular knob and then a separate deadbolt that wrapped around the side of the door that could only be unlocked from the inside of the house with a key. It was inconvenient to say the least and probably a fire hazard. I’m guessing it helped ease the worries of the single elderly lady who lived here previously.
Because we added insulation to the exterior walls and engineered flooring inside the door, we had to address the jamb and threshold. We lived with a sizable gap {think 2″} at the bottom of the door for a year and a half. I stuffed a beach towel in the gap to keep leaves, moisture and rodents out. If it weren’t for the neighbors’ cats, I’m pretty sure we should have had a mouse or two in the house last winter. The UPS man quickly learned to leave our packages outside the picture window. Sometimes, he even handed them to me through the window on days when I had it open. The entire front door debacle was embarrassing.
We aren’t quite finished with it yet but the door is functional now! You should have seen the UPS man’s face when I opened the front door to greet him this week as he was leaving a package outside our window.
“Our door opens now!” I announced, probably a little too excitedly.
He didn’t say anything – just looked at me and smiled. It was the smile you give crazy people. He was thinking, “Good for you, ma’am. Isn’t that what a door is supposed to do?” or “About damn time.”
I’m not going to bore you with the minute details but I’ll try to summarize. We ditched the clanging screen door and textured plastic inserts in the three square windows. HH fixed the jamb, installed a new threshold, cut the door down, added trim {inside and out}, installed a complicated mortise entry set, filled holes with wood epoxy paste and then sanded the entire thing down – door, jamb and all. {The concrete pad is also new; we hired out for that last fall.} And what took me two sentences to explain took about a month to complete working around the weather, family life and HH’s day job.
All that’s left to do is add weather stripping and paint. Please forgive the messy sidewalk and landscaping. We had a strong storm blow through last night and I haven’t touched a single fallen leaf. And, yes, beggar’s night was last night. I have no pictures of my kids dressed up because they just looked like kids in coats with weird pants on braving a hurricane while carrying bags of candy. Then we lost power. ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT. How’s that for spooky? So all-in-all, it was pretty much the weirdest Halloween ever.
The light fixture in the before picture is gone. Our electrician-in-law added recessed lighting in the eaves overhang during renovation. That space to the left of the front door is screaming for house numbers, no?
I’m in love with the new entry set. Mostly because it works but also because it’s chunky and simple. We didn’t want anything that would take away from the door’s design. After sanding, it was kind of fun discovering the past lives of our door. It’s been beige, blue and blue-green. Methinks it wants to try a happy mustard.
What does every door with three windows need? Why, a peephole of course. HH and I were rolling over this one. Honestly, we hadn’t paid that much attention to the door before so we were baffled when we realized we had a peephole this whole time. We couldn’t figure it out. Then I remembered that there had once been yellow textured plastic inserts covering the windows from the inside. I’m guessing for privacy? It certainly couldn’t have been for aesthetics. At some point a peephole was added to the door to see out. We removed the inserts a long time ago and have no need for a peephole so HH removed the peephole and filled the remaining hole with wood epoxy paste. What peephole?
You may have noticed in the earlier wide shot that we turned the planter into a bench / covered storage. HH used leftover material from the deck to make a slatted seat / lid. It’s divided into three sections so we can lift it up and out. Waste not, want not.
Let’s take a look at the door from the inside, shall we?
No gap at the bottom! If you look closely, you can see where the previous deadbolt and latch once lived. We kept the original hinges because they are heavy duty and work just fine.
This side of the entry set has a simple lever which I love.
The trio of windows lets light pour into this otherwise dark corner of the great room. While I don’t dislike the idea of a stained or colored door on the inside, I think this side will go white. This corner is really small and dreary and think it would look best if the door faded away. However, I cannot wait to open the door on nice days and have the yellow exterior side make a happy appearance indoors. But seeing as how it’s already November {what?!}, I’m going to have to wait. Or maybe just open it for a minute to take a picture.
What do you think? Are you glad we salvaged the front door? Do you think we should consider different paint options? How was your Halloween?
FYI – Once I have true afters, I will post all source info in one meaty post.
P.S. – As hard as I try, I can’t like pumpkin. So I made these with the kids instead.
images: Dana Miller for House*Tweaking
budget decor, DIY, renovation