Check out this ugly door. That piece of crap was the side entry door (by the driveway). Chipping paint, cracked glass, split wood and all. It was one of the things on the list to get replaced, ASAP. This past winter, it would freeze up and not open at all. I would have to go out the back door, walk around to the side, and kick it in from the outside if I needed it open.

The door was replaced on March 10th 2005, by a nice guy named Steve who worked for the same company that did the insulation and window work.

Here is an inside shot. Just as bad as the outside. That old 1940 looking curtain came with the house. The door was so bad, that some snow and ice would actually seep in through the gaps in the bottom part of the wood and snow/ice/frost would come in through the gap in the bottom.

For the replacement, a 9-light energy efficient steel door was selected. The two houses next door, along with the one across the street all have the one-glass type of door that I had put on the back, right down to almost the exact same design, so I thought it would be good to try and be a little different here. Besides, I didn’t want two of the exact same designs on the house.

Steve arrived at around 11am and the process began on the side door. The old door was removed at the hinges and set aside. Then the trim was ripped off and and trashed. Naturally there was no insulation in the gaps around it for some reason. That was a bit perplexing. Then again, a lot of stuff in this old house baffles the mind. The old wood was cut and adjusted to make the new door fit since the new door was a little bit taller than the old one. This involved ripping out the trim on the outside, as well as the inside, since the side door had a big old fashioned bolt locking system that went right into the trim. I was glad to see that go, along with the old trim.

New Door - Inside Shot w/ new trim.

The indoor trim was replaced with some new trim that Steve brought along. I think it looks nice. Some of the old wall broke off in chunks while the old door was coming down, but that was patched with plaster before the trim went up. The gap between the new trim and the paint is where the old indoor trim was. It was obviously wider. I think it’ll look real nice when that room is re-painted. By the way, all the trim was nailed up with a Senco Nailer and Compressor kit he brought along. It’s basically a nail gun. It came in very handy when nailing the boards up and countersinking everything. It looked like a great tool to have in your arsenal if you install a lot of trim and baseboards.

Steve ripped the outside trim off the new door. When it was up he replaced it with standard pieces of wood (1×6, I think) that were cut to fit. While the sound of ripping trim off a new door doesn’t sound very exciting at first, I think the end result is a lot better. Doing this basically eliminated the gaps between the new door and the exterior wall after it was up. Making it flush like that could not have been done without tearing off the trim. So lesson learned, don’t cringe if your door installer wants to rip the new trim off the door. In fact, I’d encourage it if you want something that looks a little more seamless.

After it went up, the knob and deadbolt went in. A nice gold tinted one.

New Side Door - Outside Shot

Check out that finished door. Oh yeah, Steve rules. He also did a lot of extra stuff without me asking, like put in a nice wooden threshold and cut some wood to make the interior baseboard match up. That was nice because other contractors I’ve dealt with didn’t bother. One of the guys I hired would even joke every time he’d goof by saying things like “oh that’s ok, I don’t have to live here. ha ha”. Yeah, ha ha. Real funny.

Like I said above, Steve arrived at 11am. He was here until almost 8pm installing the new door. Not counting an hour for a trip to Lowes and probably a lunch break, that was about 7 hours! He said he installs doors in a little differently than guys who installed the back door, and it definitely shows in the end result. Now I wish he was able to do the back door as well because it probably would have come out a lot nicer. Speaking of the back door, Steve actually fixed it a bit when he finished the side door. This was at the request of his boss who stopped by earlier in the afternoon to see how things were going (and probably quietly cringed when I showed him the back door the other guys did). Steve made it look a lot better with some caulking and also removed a bounce on the threshold. Since it was the other guys handy work, they should have come back to fix it at the request of their boss, but I guess he figured since Steve was already here he could just do it. In contractor world, that probably isn’t very fair, so it was cool that he did it.

Eventually I’ll get around to painting the new trim on the outside and inside. The door itself is already primed and ready to be painted, so if a color can be decided on, it might get painted too. I’d also like to put a storm door on there before the fall.

I got Steve’s card before he left and plan on hiring him for other things that need to be done here. He said he’ll probably be leaving the company he works for soon and going back into business for himself. I’m sure he’ll do well. In fact, if you’re in the upstate NY area and need door and window related work done or any general contracting, e-mail me and I’ll give you his number. Steve doesn’t have a web site and I don’t want to put his number online without his permission.

Total Cost: $795, and well worth it.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 18th, 2005 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Exterior, Projects (completed). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.