Back Entry Door Replacement

The back entry door wasn't great a year ago and it has gotten worse. The pieces that hold the window in were not sealed and literary falling off. 

So it was time for a new door.  I picked one with a window so that I can see who is at the door.  I measured the current rough frame, it was 34 inches and there was a bit of space between it and the stud.  I thought this meant I needed a 34x80 door. I was wrong, that is not how they get measured.  This resulted in a second trip to the hardware store. But now I am getting ahead of my self.

So Dad came down to help me, thank goodness, and we got the old door out, and found that we were going to have to modify the outside frame of the door, and the aluminum wrapping.

yep! it was looking pretty ugly at this point. 

But the 34 inch wide door was still to big.  So we covered the door up and headed back to the store.

At this point it was getting late and we really wanted the new door in before we went to bed. So there are no pictures of us modifing the aluminum pieces, or reattaching them, so you will have to imagine that.  Here is a picture of the shims on one side to make it straight.  That way when the door went it we felt confident that the one side would be straight and could be anchored right away. Which deviated from any instructions that I had read. But I trusted dad on this one and it turned out fine.

Here is the door with caulk on it, in hindsight, too much caulk.

We put the door in and a two screws then started up the grill for dinner.  As dinner was cooking we got the door screwed in on the other side.

Dinner was very tasty. Then it was caulk clean up, a few more screws, and a dead bolt.  Here is a view from the next morning:

As that was the end of day one that will be the end of the first half of the post.  There were just a few more details that will be discussed next time. Read On...