It’s been a long time coming… Just getting a decent front door on this house has been a task. Originally there was a 1910 eyebrow arched wood door on the front entry. I imagine it was majestic as old wood tends to be. However, it was too tempting for crack addicts and scrapping thieves to leave behind; so they took it along with it’s matching stormdoor. The previous owner must have priced a replacement and realized it would cost him over $6K for a new one so he replaced it with this make-shift contractor garbage. Yes that’s a rectangular door in a arched opening. The white surround was painted sheet metal, and the jimmy-rigged jamb was…. well only a picture can describe.
It took quite a time just to get the poorly fabricated materials off. After we pulled back the sheet metal the original moldings were revealed. This was a huge relief to me since replacing these would have been time consuming and expensive. We would have to peel back all of these pieced together layers of wood to get to the original door jamb.
In all honesty this had to be the absolute most labor intensive door install these guys had to do. Thank you Mr. Leo and crew for helping me make this one happen. It was no easy task.
First they removed all the faux-jamb wood then replaced the door with a pre-hung knotty Alder wood door. It was still rectangular, but a far better fit. It left us with a small gap that will be filled in with a small knotty Alder panel and some wrought iron detailing. the original wood moldings will be stripped and repainted to match the house trim.
Overall the final product needs few small touch-ups but it was well worth the time and effort.
