The Front Door

The saying goes "good things come to those who wait." In the case of the front door, I can unequivocally say that this is case. Gene and Mike finished the front door on Friday, and it could not have come out any better then it did. Above is a shot of the inside of the door where the windows meet the bottom mount on the inside for the exterior handle.


Here is the door in all its glory. The design came from an image of a door that was somewhat like this which I found on the web when I was just looking around. I really wanted something solid, black, and something that had enough windows to let light in; but not so many windows that we would be exposing ourselves to any theft risk. Once I found the image, I sent it to Gene who priced it out and confirmed he could indeed build something similar. This is the finished product. While this doesn't look exactly like the one that I found; I think its a better version of that door. The door is made of solid pieces of poplar that were notched and glued to form the main frame and insets of the door. Its a really solid and incredibly heavy door.


One of the main differences between the template and this door - the aluminum trim around the windows. This was not on the original design. This trim is only on the inside of the door, and is there to keep the glass insets in place and keep them from being kicked in if someone tried. The glass insets were done by a glass vendor gene knows, and were custom made just for this door. They are double thick and insulated to keep any of the exterior elements outside. What isn't pictured on any of these shots - the rice paper treatment to the windows that keep the outsiders from peeking in on the house. It was something I had purchased for the girls bathroom window to help obscure things to the outside, and it ended up working out very well.

The back door looks similar and will be going in on Monday. At that point we will be down to touch up painting and building a dog gate for the mudroom. We received our Flor tiles via UPS on Friday and those should be going in once we get things figured out with the dogs.