Our front porch has 90 panes of glass in it, *all* of which needed to be badly reglazed, stripped of paint, and restored. At this point, I've finished 68 of them (the four on the very left were done last year....the ones around the door haven't been done yet). However, I had a more important project to work on this weekend......
This is the door to our front porch. I *hate* this door. When the porch was originally closed in (probably in the 1930s or 40s), there was an inward swinging wood door here. The homeowners before us removed that door and installed this monstrosity. First off, this is a very heavy "forever door", which is too heavy for the frame. Second, it swings OUTWARD, making it a safety hazard for anybody entering from the outside...they need to back down the stairs to make way for the door. Third, the crappy crossbuck ranch styling of this door totally doesn't match the architecture of the house. Finally, it wasn't installed right....the opening is way out of square and racked, so there were all sorts of gaps where the weather could get in (notice the gaps at the top and bottom of the door).
So, I decided to replace the door. After finding what appeared to be the wood screen insert for the original door in the basement, I designed and built a new wood door that I hope is similar to what was there originally.
Here's the opening with the monstrosity removed. Once I had the old door off, I could see how the original door was installed (in terms of where the stops were located, the hinges, etc.). Fortunately, I had designed the new door to be installed in pretty much the same way, so getting the opening ready for the new door was fairly easy. When the previous owners installed the Forever door, they mangled the hell out of the frame with a circular saw. I cleaned it up the best I could with my planes, gave it a light sanding, and primed the bare wood visible in the picture. Once the primer was dry, I installed some stops for the door.
Here's the new door at the end of the first day. The door itself is made mostly of cypress (for rot resistance), and features mortise-and-tenon joinery. The panel is solid cypress, not plywood. The mail slot and door knobs are solid brass with an antique brass finish. The door itself was built to be as light as possible, and weighs only 30 pounds (the forever door weighed in at a hefty 50 pounds). The door also swings inward.
The stops have been installed, the door planed to fit the opening (notice how it follows the unevenness of the threshhold, and all of the hardware (including hinges) installed. Most of the door still needs to be either primed or painted (the rail where the mailslot is and the lower panel have already been painted white). There are also gaps between the green siding and the new stops that need to be filled in.
At the end of day two, the door is pretty much done. Filler strips have been added between the siding and the new doorstops to give the siding something to butt into (basically very thin cornerboards). The area around the strips has been caulked, primed, and painted. The picture doesn't show it, but that turned out very nicely. Both sides of the door have been painted....outside white, inside an antique green. I had so many things in various states of being primed/caulked/painted that I had to write it all down so I'd know when I could move on to the next step! The only things left to do are to put a 2nd coat of paint on the inside of the door (didn't have time to get it all done in one day) and install the weatherstripping (which I'll do after the paint cures). The old mailbox has also been removed from the side of the door, as it's obviously no longer needed.
