Our New Door!

We had some serious issues with the door in our breakfast room.  It was a lovely door, wooden and a pretty stained color inside.  My favorite part?  The crank doorbell.  The problem?  It had a huge rotten spot on the bottom, was hung out of level, would swell when it was hot out or raining, and didn't close all the way at the top and the bottom.  Helloooo energy efficiency, bugs coming in, and just being a general pain in the back door.

I apparently don't have a photo of the door in my collection of house pictures.  This is a pretty good idea of what it looked like though.  We replaced the brass doorknob with a more attractive brushed nickel.

You know, because we had one key to the old doorknob and had six made but none of them worked.  What's that about?  Now I want oil rubbed bronze hardware on it, but we'll get there.  

We looked all over for a new door, but I'm cheap thrifty and didn't want to spend $600 on one.  We went to salvage yards, the traditional big box stores, and my favorite hoarder's spot.  I would have preferred a wooden door, but didn't want to deal with the issues we had with the existing door.  I was also very specific in that I wanted a window, but not a window that had sectioned panes of glass.  I would have preferred a Dutch door, but that was out of our budget.

We opted for this fiberglass door, from hoarder's paradise, for $165.  It has double paned glass with blinds in between the panes.  It can be painted or stained, and we can put the crank doorbell into it.

We will paint the inside white, and will stain the outside a deep brown.  Our existing door was painted a sort of redish-maroon, but we will paint the exterior eventually and I'm not going to paint this door a color I hate, just to paint it again later.  And we don't have any of the exterior paint or have any idea what the color is, and I don't feel like starting that matching game.

Please disregard the chipped trim, the empty flower pots, and the single plant in the wall planters. . . I need about 40 more hours each week.  I'm addressing the flower situation today. . . We're also going to scrape and repaint that trim section, because it looks atrocious.  However, I love my new back door.  I'm glad we waited to find something we liked, instead of getting something temporary that would be good enough.  I'll update with some pictures once it's been painted and stained!