Week 9: When One Door Closes, Another One Opens

While many of you know we are undergoing a major kitchen renovation, it is important to note that the rest of the house still needs some work. One thorn in our side is the front door: Come to think of it, I don’t think any of our doors are all that great.

Take the old kitchen door:

This pic was taken during the demo phase of our renovation

Take a look at that gap at the top of the door. I just see money escaping through the door in the form of air conditioning and heating. The prior owners energy bills had to have been pretty high.

It is now been replaced with this:

Taken from the angle from the dining room entry way

Lovely and nicely weather-stripped, complete with energy efficient window.

Anyway, back to the front door.  Although it is a beautiful red on the outside (which we love because it really pops against the façade of our house), it is down right crappy. It has huge gaps in the woodworks and you can literally see right through it.

See? I wasn’t kidding. And you thought the kitchen door was bad. No need for peepholes here…lol. But seriously though it looks like it’s haunted. It reminds me of the door from the Poltergeist and I’m the little girl saying, “They’re heeeeeere…”

Anyways, we asked our contractor if he could replace the front door along with the basement door. We figured since all his tools were on site it would be easier just to get it done while he was around. In an attempt to save money (and to possibly keep some historic charm) we headed to Habitat for Humanity ReStore and Community Forklift on a productive Saturday to see if they had some used front doors. Unfortunately, the ReStore near my parents’ place mostly contained leftover items from new construction, which wouldn’t fit the aesthetic of our house, so we headed to Community Forklift in Hyattsville.

Doors Galore

Where's Justin?

At Community Forklift we encountered the opposite problem. There were so many different kinds doors (e.g.: interior doors, doors with windows).  And they all came in a million different sizes too! It was hard to find one that would fit our doorframe. After sorting through rows and rows of doors we ended up not finding a door. At least our effort should be applauded because we had talked about visiting Community Forklift for the longest time.  It is a really cool place where you can find some really great stuff for older homes! Although, we did not find a door there, we did find something else for our house, which I will tell you about in another blog post.

Paint and storm door coming soon!

In the end, we ultimately chose doors from good ol’ Lowes and opted to get a storm doors as well.  Unlike our old door, a little insulation never hurt anyone.