Friday, September 18, 2015

Salvaged Front Door - Update No.5

Had I known how much the lumber stores charge for really crappy MDF mouldings, I would have been a bit more careful ripping-off the old ones. Luckily I tend to salvage pretty much anything that "might be useful later" (yes I'm a bit of a packrat, but I'm not a hoarder either), and in this situation, it saved me around 20$.

For those who have been following the blog since the beginning, you may remember that a lot of the original casings in the house had been ripped out, or otherwise ruined or modified. One of the mouldings I saved was a somewhat plain, but very wide moulding off this door frame leading to the kitchen:

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For comparison, here's the same doorway today (not the greatest photo, but it's late at night):



This trim is something close to 6" wide, and fits very nicely for the side casings for the exterior of the front door. It's not very visible in the photo above, but the moulding has a double stepped ogee pattern. I only had one piece of this trim, however, and I'd need two. I went and picked up another length of 7 feet at Home Depot, and at something around 2.44$/foot plus tax, the piece cost almost 20$. There's around 3$ worth of MDF in the moulding, which gives you an idea of how much this is marked-up. I also noticed after I got home that the newer moulding is a fraction thinner than the "old" one (which is probably no more than 6-7 years old by now) and the MDF in it is also softer (less fibre content = cheaper quality).

In any case, I also wanted to buy another moulding for the top, of what I normally call "small crown", and I found out that they no longer carry it! They used to have it available in finger joint pine, clear pine, as well as in MDF, and it appears to have been completely phased-out! This particular moulding has been "standard stock" for decades! They had it only available in some kind of plastic version, and it was too expensive, so I wasn't happy. I'll have to go check out the other lumber place at the other end of town to see if they have any, or I'll have to come up with a different design with other mouldings.

Currently I have the two plinth blocks and vertical casings installed, and I have the dividing bead moulding at the top milled and ready.

The casings for the front door (on the exterior) will be similar to the interior ones in the rest of the house, but larger, and a bit fancier to match the ornate millwork on the door. This will be the only really fancy doorway in the whole house (since this house has always been fairly simple) but I still want it to make a bit of a statement.

Side note: I'm holding off on more photos until I can do a big reveal.

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