Baby, it's cold outside . . . because we have no back door.

Baby . . . it's really really cold outside. In case you didn't know we live in Canada. And while it's the mildest part of Canada . . . it's still Canada and Mid-November is COLD!!!!!!

I'll back up and give you the whole story. This summer we bought a beautiful french door in very rough shape for $45! I never loved our builder basic back door and when I found a solid wood, double paned french door at a salvage yard for $45, I jumped on it.
The key to this story is . . . we bought the door this summer. Summer the perfect season for projects that involve your house having no door! We didn't get around to it until this weekend, in the middle of Fall, with the temperature hovering just above freezing, right on the tail end of a mean case of strep throat and a bad cold.

The reason for our delay was, one part over excitement, and one part terrible measuring skills (on my part). You see . . . I got so excited I didn't notice that it needed WAY more work than I thought. I also blame over excitement for my measuring the door wrong . . . turns out it was 1" too wide and 1" too short. Errrr . . . oops ;).

We considered returning the door, we ran around the house trying to find another opening, we cried a little (just kidding . . . only Lee cried . . . just kidding no one cried).
Lee decided that we could use the table saw and trim the door down half an inch on each side. Then a trip to home depot for a small piece of Fir 1" thick. Lee attached it to the bottom of the door, using glue and screws! Since it's the bottom of the door no one would ever know! ;)

Okay, all is fixed here's how it went down.
This post could have been titled "15 Hours of my life I'll never get back" or "Seriously can you believe that we spent 15 hours on this door" or "OUCH, my back".
We really did spend 15 hours on this door. First we had to clean years of dirt and grease off of the glass, then we had to scrap off old paint and stain from the window panes. Just me, a small razor and every square millimeter of each pane of glass, front and back.  Lee taped of each pane of glass, perfectly so that no stain would get on the glass.

Then we sanded the door, using a small orbit sander for the face of it, and doing all of the trim around the windows by hand!

Then we Stained it! I chose 'Dark Walnut' for the inside because it was exactly the same color as the floor, I wanted it to look like the floor color ran right up on to the door. The other side of the door we painted the same color as the outside trim.

Next, Lee cut out the door knob cut outs using a jig you can buy at Home Depot for $20 . . . word is, totally worth the $20 investment.

An in case you're wondering the $45 for the door, the $20 for the jig, the $6 pot of stain, and the 15 hours of manual labor . . . all completely, totally, utterly worth every penny and every minute!
Judge for yourself, before:

After:

I think that in New Build Homes (aka. Builder Basic Homes), it's the special touches that add the charm and keep your home from looking like a big beige box. There was nothing 'wrong' with the old door, in fact it had some nifty little blinds between the glass, but it was a bit on the boring side, and I really didn't like the plastic trim holding the glass in.
This wood feller takes my breath away.

I LOVES HIM! (Yes I meant to add the extra S).
Speaking of things I LOVE! Our New Door knob! While I think that the lever style door handles (like the one in our before picture) are probably a bit more functional . . . but I LOVE a oil rubbed bronze Knob! Oh the simplicity! (sorry for the bad picture I was having 'camera issues'/ 'camera operator issues'.

And Yes . . . that chair is wearing socks (more on that later).

 

I Hope you like the door as much as we do. My favorite moment of any project is when Lee looks at the finished project and says . . . "Oh Wow, you were right that is SO much better", maybe it's just the "You're Right" part ;).  

Taking a second look at these photos, the actual door color is a little less "redish" than the photos. It's closer to walnut color, than the cherry color it's showing.