While the photo on the left is admittedly a little rough, its good enough to give an accurate idea of the horrible, horrible door that greeted you when you entered our house when we first moved in. The image on the right is what we’ve replaced it with.
I’d say that the first obstacle you have to overcome is finding a door the correct size. It is only relatively recently that doors and windows started to come in standard sizes. That means that you are rarely able to buy a door right of the floor and install it in an old house.
We were lucky to find an original door to our street that a neighbor was willing to part with. Of course, they were willing to sell the door because it was in rough shape. With a lot of work — which included repairing broken and missing wood, having the leaded glass rebuilt, and replacing the larger panes with security glass — the door was finally able to be installed.
I know its a lot more work than most folks would do, but having a door that is appropriate to the house was worth it.
You can see some in process shots after the jump Continue reading