We got a new front door. You can kinda see the old situation in this shot at the beginning of the demolition. Green steel door with half sidelights.
And here it is from the inside.
The new door was the end result of a long saga. The short story is that our front steps (made of brick) were in disrepair and we hired someone to rebuild them. Once the steps were torn apart, the people we hired basically admitted they could not do the work. Insert some drama with contractors and higher costs here.
During the rebuild, we found out the foundation underneath the front door needed to be reinforced. The bottom of the door frame was also rotted. That meant a portion of our foyer floor had to be replaced and we needed to replace the front door frame. We have a 36 inch door frame with 10 inch sidelights on each side.
Because we hadn’t planned for this and kind of needed to move quickly, and because I’m impatient, I didn’t want to be bothered with the timing and expense of ordering a door. When we talked to the folks at Lowe’s we found out the doors we liked ran about $1100 and would take 3 weeks to arrive.
Here’s how I worked it out. We went to Home Depot and bought Masonite’s standard, plain steel door with glass sidelights.
Then we separately chose one of Masonite’s single pre-hung doors with a leaded glass design. We had to make sure both doors had the correct left in-swing needed and that the hinges matched up. These two separate purchases came in under $700. We had the installer swap out the plain steel door that came with the big frame for the decorative door. What a wonderful difference! The extra light it allows is great. And it sparkles at night time. I love sparkle!
It really upgraded the exterior of the home too. And instead of the plain concrete at the front landing, that we had before, we went with stone. It’s blue stone and I love the way it looks and wears.
Guess what I noticed the day the door was installed? There’s a V (for our last name) in the middle of the leaded glass window!
it’s all looking great. can’t wait til my next visit to take it all in.
Really like that blue stone. Have been trying to get some work on my front steps/stoop, but nothing going on there:-(
This looks very nice! We are thinking of doing this on our door. We will be putting in a left hand door with a sidelight on the left side. We were wondering (and the guy at Home depot did not know) if we could sink heavier, longer screws into the door frame on the sidelight side, in order to make it harder to kick in the door.
Thanks. Our installer, said yes, should work.
Thanks!! We will look into getting this on the weekend.