When the house came to us, the front entryway left something to be desired. I can only imagine that the storm door is original to the house, and the actual door was painted in the same pale baby poop brown as the rest of the house.
Our first step in making things a bit more inviting was to replace the storm door with a full view model. Several lessons learned from this process:
- No matter how good the directions appear, it's best to read through them and figure out how the pieces work together before you make cuts and drill holes. That way, you don't begin to attach the "Z-bar" upside down. (Yeah, we'll let you know when we actually apply this lesson in a future project. Don't hold your breath.)
- Our drill sucks. The $30 Black and Decker cordless model is great for apartment dwellers, but we need a bit more power. In order to get the closing mechanism attached, Craig had to sit and wait for the drill to charge enough to complete each individual pilot hole.
- The friendly biker guy down the street is willing to lend a hand if we really get in over our heads. Good to know...
Next was stripping and refinishing the front door. We really liked the door itself, just not the flat icky paint on it. It's a nice solid door, and looks like it goes with the house (unlike a Suburban Special from Menards would). The handle is really cool, and there's a sticker on the side telling us where to go in case of nuclear attack - one of the few "pieces of history" we're likely to find here. Too bad we can't read it, and some child years ago decided to scribble in his own "No Nukes" protest.
The stripping itself was a learning experience. After browsing through a few library books, I picked up a gallon of "Power Stripper" and was on my way. Most of the paint came off in two coats, but I did spend a fair amount of time scrubbing with steel wool and "Fromby's Paint and Poly Remover Wash," as well as scraping in the corners with my handy dandy teardrop-shaped moulding scraper. The previous owners had apparently stripped the door down before they primed and painted in brown, but I found some bits of Pepto Bismol / My Little Pony pink in some of the corners. Scary. A few flecks of paint and other imperfections remained, but I was satisfied.
The finish on the interior side of the door came off quite easily.
We then rehung the door, since the basement wasn't a very good place to keep it while we were away at work. That's when the trouble began. The bare wood was lighter than we wanted it, so I decided to rub some stain in before the final finish.
This was a Very. Bad. Idea.
The weathered wood on the exterior side of the door sucked up that stain like a sponge. I hadn't applied any sort of sealer, and consequently I was left with a dark, muddy mess.
After some tears and gnashing of teeth, I got out our little handheld power sander, and got off the muddy top layer of stained wood. What was beneath was pretty good. I had to sand the crevices and paneling by hand the next night.
As a side note, it's best not to use your working kitchen as an area to sand down wood, no matter how much hassle it would be to move the door to the basement or garage. Even if you vaccuum as well as possible, you really do get a fine layer of wood dust over everything, the dog tracks it into the rest of the house, and you have wood dust all over your black pants when you try to make coffee the next morning. Anyway.
We then re-re-hung the door for its three coats of satin spar varnish. I applied a sealer coat first (just in case - I think I'm sold on sealer for everything now), then put on a coat of varnish per day. The exterior side of the door looks like what it is - a fifty year old door that's seen some use, and the interior looks pretty dang good.
At some point - hopefully this fall, we plan to take down the awning in front and replace the existing railing. We'll also change out the light fixture, select a new mailbox, and get new house numbers. For now, though, the door changes bring us to Entryway Version 1.5.
And Phoebe likes it.
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