Screen Door Upgrade!

Overdue Improvement!

Our screen door had been falling off its hinges since we bought our house:

Before

Before

Falling apart.

Decided it was time for a change.  The challenge was finding an exact replacement - apparently arch top doors are rare?  

After a few days (weeks) of searching, we settled on a company in California to build the replacement.   Send them the measurements you need, a pile of money, and get a sweet new door a month later.  What could go wrong?

New Stuff!

Door arrived in perfect condition, to the exact measurements we took.  We never considered that the house have settled around the entry and the opening was no longer square.  Rookie move, considering that in 4 years of tinkering we haven't encountered a straight line in this house.

So nothing fit.  This was the solution:

Taking 1/8" off a corner.

Shave down one corner of the door, one pass at a time.  Took about 20 min. but prevented a wrong cut with a saw, ruining our $500 investment.

Caulked seams, door shavings!

Cutting hinge mortises:

Another slightly stressful step in the process, although not quite as bad.  Came out alright considering we've done this three times in our lives.

Next came prime and paint.  Two coats of primer, three of exterior blue.  Make sure your new door doesn't rot away like the old one.

Primed

Finally matched the existing door / shutters.  Indigo Streamer!

Vintage hardware from the old house junkyard:

We could have spent all day at that place.  Literally acres of old sinks, doors, toilets, shutters, wood window sashes, etc.  Everything you'd ever want to restore an old home, and none of it organized.  Heaven.

Add the screen, install all hardware, and hang.  Side note:  The best way to remove decades of layered paint from old hinges, knobs, etc is to cook them overnight in a crock pot full of soapy water.  The next morning the paint will pull off like chewed gum and you can steel wool / polish / paint the clean metal.

End result:

We're still addressing the worn-out sill pictured above.  Small but gratifying project, for a later post...