Revisiting something mentioned in an earlier post and providing a bit more detail. Most of the doors here are sliding glass ones, but when we moved in we had a small collection of “normal” doors leading into and out of the house and studio building. When we renovated the studio building, we removed the weird swing door; before that, we had the French doors in that building reframed with a metal bottom when dealing with the first round of dry-rot issues. While not great (some gap issues along the bottom), the front doors aren’t something we’re about to change anytime soon.
The swing door in the kitchen, though, was another matter. It didn’t seal well, and in strong winds would blow open if not latched, and even when latched the wind still came through the gap between the frame and door. New weatherstripping didn’t alleviate the issue. When we moved in, the door lock required a key, and that was annoying, so we had a locksmith replace that with a simple deadbolt. That solved the blowing-open issue, but chilly air still seeped in, so after we had the house repainted and repaired/replaced the siding along the southeast corner of the house, we decided to just seal up the door. Sure, we could have gotten a contractor in, had the door and frame pulled out and perhaps a simple window put in, but that seemed like overkill considering all the other projects we’d like to get done.
Here’s the door today. We’re still on the fence about the door closer attached to the top of the door–remove it or let it stay? We could hang something from it….
Oh, and the series of keychains decorating the wee space between the doors? That is a story for another time.
