I wasn't exactly sure what Joey had planned to get done on Saturday, but I soon found out he was planning to replace the side door into our garage. This needed to be done. The old wood door was rotting out. In fact, our mortgage lender wouldn't even let us close on the house until we "fixed" the bottom of this door where part of it had rotted and fallen off.
Joey had temporarily fixed the problem by nailing a board along the bottom of the door to cover up the gap. This was enough to pass inspection, but that's about it. And it hasn't been touched since then. Oops. I hoped to give you a nice shot of our ghetto-rigged door, but since Joey got such an early start on fixing this thing, I wasn't able to capture a "before" picture for you. However, in my archive of photos, I found one picture with a long shot of the side door. You can see it way to the right (squint really hard)...
...and at the bottom of the door, you can kind of see the crackled wood.
The door had a lock on it, but let's be real, just about any kid could bang up against the door and blow the whole thing into the garage. Not exactly safe for keeping out robbers. So, I agreed with Joey that it needed to be replaced. I just didn't know exactly what would be involved in this process.
So, imagine my surprise when I stumbled outdoors around 10am - (No, I didn't sleep in until 10am. I had been preoccupied doing inside stuff prior to that. Like taking a shower, which is an absolute necessity) - walked outside, and found the old door laying on it's side sans nailed-on-board...
And I found all the trim ripped off the door frame. And Joey with a grumpy expression on his face (because he doesn't like his picture taken at 10am)...
Turns out, they don't make new doors like they used to. Surprise, surprise. New garage doors are wider. Therefore, the door frame also needed to be wider. Hence, the trim was ripped off and a saw was used to cut down part of the wall of the garage to widen the entrance...
So, that's what I walked into at 10am - a pile of rubble of what used to be trim and a garage wall. I was a little taken a-back, but got over it quickly. Renovating an old house comes with all kinds of quirks that have to be worked out. Nothing should surprise me anymore.
So, Joey had to make a new door frame where the wall used to be. After all, you gotta be able to hang the new door. He used his nail gun to bang these babies into place. Pardon the messy, messy garage (on the spring cleaning list), and the all-dirt-yard in the first picture...
Once the door frame was in place, Joey could hang the door. He purchased a basic steel door from Menard's. It comes in a standard white, but can be painted any color you want. We will wait to paint it later once we decide when and what color we want to paint the rest of the garage.
After the door was hung, Joey put new white trim around the outside...
...gives it a more finished appearance.
Here is the final product. You can see the new aluminum threshold at the base to seal the bottom of the door when it's closed. Joey was also able to set the new lock and deadbolt to use the same key our house uses. Nice 'n' easy.
No one will be breaking through this new door! And it's a good thing Joey got it hung over the weekend because as of Monday morning, someone broke into Joey's car, which was parked in the driveway, and stole his iPod, phone charger, and some spare change. I'm so thankful they couldn't get into the garage which has a lot of expensive tools, furniture, and all kinds of other things! Thankfully, no damage was done to Joey's car either.
When it comes to fixing things up around the house, Safety should always be a first priority! Lesson learned!
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