When we moved into our house, the first thing we said we'd do is get a new front door. The existing door was brown, ugly, and starting to fall apart. It didn't have a door knob - just a dead-bolt, so we would end up pulling/pushing the door open/closed by using the key in the lock, turned about half way. When we bought the new fridge a couple of weeks after moving in, it wouldn't fit through the door in it's packing carton. Because we were getting a new front door, we simply elected to shove the fridge through, which resulted in further splintering of the door, and delamination of the door skin.
And now, only two years later, we decided it was time to do something about it.
So, a couple of weekends ago, we took a Bunnings voucher that we were given last Christmas back to it's home, and traded it and a large amount of cash for a brand new front door, complete with a new door lock and deadbolt. A subsequent trip to the paint shop acquired a frightenly expensive tin of paint, and we were good to go.
Jess believed this to be a very straightforward job. Buy new door, take old door away, put new door in - job done. Having had experience with doors before, I knew better. Maybe it really is as simple as she though, and I just manage to bugger it up every time I try, but this time proved that at least I'm consistent.
First up the new door was much larger than the old one. So with the help of my trusty circular saw, we trimmed 10mm off both the top and bottom, and a whopping 30mm off each side. This saw the new door exactly the same size as the existing one. My plan was to measure and set up the new door exactly the same as the old one, right down to the position of the hinges. That way, instead of needing to muck around with hanging the new door, I'd simply pop the old one off, screw the hinges onto the new door in the exact same position as the old one, and voila - it would hang straight back on.
With that in mind, I wanted to have the door completely finished - cut to size, sanded and painted before hanging.
We painted the door one side at a time, lying on the outside table, as shown above with it's primer/undercoat on. That night I spoke to Dad, who told me the golden law of painting a door was to always make sure that you painted both sides at once. Apparently if you only paint one side, the absorption of the paint on the one side causes the wood to warp and bend the door. Great.
Thankfully the predicted warping never occurred, or, if it did, it's too slight to tell. Thank goodness for that. That's about the length and breadth of the good luck we had though. It took the best part of a week to give the door one undercoat and two top coats, since we only could work on it at night, and could only do one side at a time. In amongst all this we were both sick, which further impeded our progress. Not to mention that Weekend #1 was the
Phillip Is MotoGP race, and Weekend #2 was
the V8's at Bathurst.
Last Sunday we were finally at a stage to remove the old door and hang the new one. So the old one was turfed out the back (where it's stayed to this day), and the new one bought inside, ready for the fun to begin.
By measuring carefully we were able to attach the hinges onto the door in roughly the right spot, so we could hang it onto the hinge-half that was still attached to the wall with relative ease. Then the fun started.
The new door is exactly the same height and width as the old one, as measured on both left and right sides, and top and bottom. However, the new door is SQUARE. The old door, as it turns out, is not, and neither is the door jamb. So the door won't close. We tried spacing out the top hinge to angle the top-outside corner down, but then the entire door edge would hit the jamb. So back it went, and our only choice was to take a wedge out of the top of the door. We started on Saturday night with a jigsaw and sander, but neither were aggressive enough for the heavy door timber. However by sheer persistence we ended up with enough ground off the top to allow the door to be wedged shut. With no door locks installed yet, we were relying on the (very dodgy) security screen as our protection from all the nasty people that roam our suburb.
Sunday morning saw us remove the door and cart it back outside to attack with the circular saw. 10 seconds later, the top was trimmed down and everything was good in the world. Back inside it went, and back onto it's hinges, and after a bit of judicious sanding and planing, we had a door that swung beautifully on it's hinges, and fitted into the (decidedly not square) door jamb.
Next step was the door locks. I had pre-drilled the holes for both the door handle/lock as well as the deadlock. This was done from measurements of the old door, so that the new door would line up perfectly. Of course, this was before we needed to take a further 10mm off the top of the new door. So we ended up with the door latch not going anywhere near the existing rebate and strike.
Note about the door jamb - it's amazingly difficult to modify the door jamb in our case. This is because of 2 things:
1) the house is made out of besser bricks
2) the door jambs through-out the house are made out of metal.
They're big metal inverted-U shaped things. You take your besser-block wall, use a concrete saw to cut out a door shape, then twist and wriggle the U-shaped door jamb into the hole and voila - you end up with a nice metal door jamb over your nasty rough concrete hole.
So to modify the door jamb, and specifically the latch strike, you need to drill through the metal jamb, and then into the concrete. Step 1 saw me use a metal drill bit. This worked for a second or two, until it started to bite through the metal and hit the concrete. This immediately blunted the bit. Step 2 saw me use a masonry bit with the drill in hammer mode. This simply flattened out the metal and closed over the hole that we'd made earlier. Great.
So, we took the time-honoured tradition of dodgying it up. The latch was only just missing the existing strike and hole. So by using a drill bit in an entirely un-authorised manner, we simply elongated the hole for the latch downwards. This means the handle stays in the same position, but the latch, instead of being horizontal, slopes downwards and exists the door on a bit of an angle. This was enough to let it clear the existing strike, and it latches and locks perfectly.
Of course, we needed to rebate the latch plate 3mm into the door itself, so it would end up nice and flush with the side of the door. It was then that I discovered that I don't have any wood chisels. I keep meaning to buy them, but keep thinking I've already got a set, so consequently I never end up with any. Fortunately, I DO have a sharp flat-head screwdriver, and that worked a treat, albeit taking much, MUCH longer and resulting in a much rougher job than a $2 chisel would have afforded.
So now the door's hung, and the main latch/knob is installed, it's time to fit the deadlatch. First order of business it to re-attempt to drill into the door jamb to create a new locating hole/strike for the deadbolt bolt. And this is where my long-suffering drill finally throws in the towel. Unfortunately, I believe it's motor to be burnt out. I've not pulled it apart yet, but I suspect the worst. Which is a shame, since I *really* like that drill. I may yet be able to source a new motor for it and have it repaired - I certainly hope so.
Unfortunately this called an end to the day's festivities. We were able to assemble the deadbolt into the door itself so that we don't have any huge gaping holes in our new door, but until we can drill out the door jamb it will be purely decoration. There was another 2 hours spent trying to correctly re-assemble the door handle/lock after following the instructions to correctly orientate the keyhole on the outside, which only came to an end after I resorted to a large hammer. Thankfully it worked a treat.
With a splash of paint slapped on the freshly sawn/planed/sanded areas, it's come up looking quite ok, for a dodgy home job:
Certainly looks heaps better than the old one, and the square windows suit the style of the house down to a tee. With the blue paint and silver satin door handles, it looks quite smart and modern, and really lifts the look of the place, especially the inside of the front room.
There a few minor jobs left to do:
- Add a magnetic door stop, affixed into the masonary - the original door had one of these, but it was only screwed into the skirting board. You can guess how long it lasted, but it did stop the inside door handle from smashing into the blockwork whenever the door was opened or the wind caught it.
- Touch up the paint around the edges of the glass
- Throw out the dodgy security screen and buy something that actually affords a bit of security.
I've already wiped down the entire front of the house inside, and vacuumed the floors to remove as much of the sawdust that we so deftly distributed whilst initially trying to get it to fit. I fear I'll be finding more sawdust for years to come. I've already hosed out the back patio once, but there's still sawdust everywhere, so it might need to be attacked with the pressure cleaner. The joys of renovating!
