A New Front Door

When we first bought this project house, one of the things that amazed us is how beat up the front door was. Although we should've taken more photos of the door, it was one of those things that we kind of kept ignoring, working around it in the main rooms, yet still feeling as though the front rooms couldn't really be done until we did something about that pesky door. 

The door was full of dents and dings - both large and small, and the damage could be found on both the interior and exterior - which is of course what caused us to question what in the world people were doing to create these impressions on a very sturdy, metal door. Certainly, one can understand scratches that happen from moving furniture and other items in and out (after all, the house was a rental for many, many years), but paint is fixable, removing the dents and dings - well, that would be more challenging.

The interior of the front door doesn't look too bad here, but believe us when we say, it was in rough shape.

So, we searched for a front door, locally in home improvement stores, Restore, and secondhand stores, as well as scouring Craigslist and other online sources, but apparently finding a door that is not the current standard width was going to take a lot of extra man hours. Our hope was to find a wood door (both because we wanted a natural element at the front and because it would be easier to shave the size down, if needed, for our non-typical sized front door), and we were okay with it being a full slab or having a partial window, so we really weren't being super picky. 

Another photo of the front door, on the exterior side, which definitely better illustrates the shape it was in.

Getting in to a closer view, it's easier to see how many dings and dents were found all over the door, on both sides.

No matter how many hours we spent, we just weren't finding what we needed. I was getting super frustrated because unless we were willing to spend close to $2k for a door, nothing seemed to be available. And, in case you were wondering, we were not prepared, nor were we ever going to be willing to spend two-thousand dollars on a door. It's a door, for goodness sake!

Thankfully, Sam had broadened his Craigslist searching and he found a door in Eugene, so, although we weren't super excited about driving four hours (two each direction) to get a door, the price was definitely right, so we figured it was worth the trip over the pass to pick it up.

Yesterday, Sam was able to finally install the door that we've had for several weeks now, and we're super happy with the new look. No dents or dings and it's solid wood with a smaller window area at the top. Both the interior and exterior sides will be left in a natural color of the wood. We simply sealed the wood to protect it from the elements, and we'll let it stand as-is. 

Observant viewers may also notice that the painted wood flooring has also disappeared. That is a story for another post (which is coming), but we're happy that things are finally starting to settle in to place, and that the ugly front door is finally out of our lives.