Salvaged Front Door Project Part 5 - Installing The New Jamb And Door

The front door project is pretty much wrapped up now, and I just need to post the last few entries about it. I could post everything in one post, but there are nearly 40 photos, so I'm splitting it up in 2 parts (Part 5 and Part 6). Another third entry (Part 7) will show the installation of traditional bronze weatherstripping (only partially completed as of this writing).

As you know, the salvaged antique door has been stripped, repaired, lightly stained, and varnished, and I've built a new jamb for the door. Before installing the door, however, let's take a last look at the door that's been on the house since I bought it back in 2010.

Originally I had thought of keeping the existing (new) door jamb and simply changing the door for an antique one, but in the end, that was a stupid idea. In the meantime, I had trimmed-out the door (several years ago) but I didn't cut and install the top crown since I wasn't sure if this door would stay, and I have very limited supplies of the door crown mouldings. I'm glad I waited.



The interior of the old door is still fairly nice (keeping in mind that I still hate modern steel doors).





View from the living room (green) and from the office (grey).





The exterior of the door, however, has always looked like shit. The mouldings are not properly installed, there's a gap at the top, and I've never liked the look of the ribbed metal threshold.



There are also extra screw holes around the lock area that I never bothered to try and patch.

NOTE: The gap at the top just shows black tar paper, but it's solid wood behind this. There's no "hole" or draftiness from here, it just looks bad.





Demo started with removing all the mouldings. The plinth blocks will be reused, but the vertical boards will be too short now (I can maybe reuse them upstairs on a normal height interior door).



You can see that this newer door was installed against one original side of the door frame, and that the original door had only two 3" hinges.



The door was removed, and the jamb was unscrewed. The jamb slid out of the opening with a bit of persuasion.







You can see that the original height of the door was taller (filled with 2x4 scraps).



All the wood scrap fillers, the remains of the old door jamb, and the spray foam was scraped off. Here you can see the base of the door all cleaned up. You can see the edge of the foundation, a 2x4 bottom stud, and the edges of the barn board (diagonal) subfloor. The grey boards with a bit of a peach edge are part of the porch. And yes I'm still looking forward to getting rid of all that hideous grey tile!





This view is a bit cool to see. This shows the construction of the house. Interior drywall, cardboard/paper, tongue and groove (inside), 2x4 framing, more tongue and groove (outside), black tar paper sheeting, and finally the original cedar wood siding - which isn't visible in this photo but you can see it in the one above (followed by later additions on the rest of the house exterior).



Something that is a bit hard to make out in the other photo is that the bottom 2x4 over the foundation had been hand-cut to form a slope (like a wooden window sill) and I assume that the original door jamb's base had a slope in it. Mine didn't (if I had known I could easily have made it with a slope!) so I had to patch this area to make it square again. I did this with an "L" shaped section of wood in 2 pieces. A 1/2" thick length nailed at the front, then a new board over the whole thing.



I also had a bit too much side-to-side play in the opening, so I filled part of it by nailing some pieces of 1/2" plywood around the opening.



Once the opening was ready, the jamb was installed mainly only on the hinge side. This is important because I had to hang the door FIRST, and then adjust the jamb to clear the door around the 3 other sides. I don't even know if the door is perfectly rectangular, so I couldn't just install everything "level and square" in case it wouldn't work out. It was also much easier to just tweak everything else on the 3 other sides of the door with the door hanging in place.



I found evidence of an old door bell location that is almost at the same place as the new one! The new doorbell will be just about 2" higher than the original was.



Lots of fiddling around had to be done to get the door to sit as nicely as possible. In the end, it's NOT perfect, but it is pretty close, and it looks great, opens and closes properly (OMG! I'm not used to that!) and I'm very happy with it!









What a huge difference already! Next: mouldings!

Salvaged Front Door - Update No.3

Here are a few photos of the finished door with all the antique hardware fitted and installed (except the hinges and the glass).

The knobs and plates needed stripping and cleaning. You can tell that they used to have more copper on them, but I like the weathered look that they have currently. I coated these with clear spray lacquer to try and keep them protected for as long as possible.

The Yale lock was stripped, and I believe the original paint might have been beige (which is a very unusual colour) but it was completely shot. I repainted it with a metallic bronze spray paint (masked-off the knobs). I have the matching strike plate as well.

Here's the interior side:



The key is not original, and it's not an EXACT fit, however it does work fine with the lock. Ideally it would need to be the same shape, but just a hair longer since it has trouble "throwing the bolt" all the way, and you need to rotate the key again no nudge it through to the end. I probably won't use this lock unless I want to make the door excessively secure (if I leave the house for a trip or something).

Note the original pencil lines in the wood. These were very deeply pressed into the wood, and I couldn't scrub them out. I would have needed to sand down the wood too much to remove them (the sanded area would have shown) so I left them there.



Yale lock, with original slot screws (also painted to match), and newly fitted with 3 keys.



Exterior Side:



The lock and ring around it are brass, and I love the existing patina on them.



The backplate on this side is matching, but it's a lot larger.

Salvaged Front Door - Update No.2

The door is now finished*, with almost all the hardware installed on it. I have just one small problem now, which is hinges. The original hinges were 4" flashed copper hinges. When I salvaged the door, most of the hinges were gone. There was only the half left without the ball tips or pins.

In addition to this, I also discovered that the door stile (the vertical door member) that carries the hinges is fairly warped. There is about a 1/2" to 3/4" warp along the length of the door. The strike side of the door (opposite stile) is fine. The only way I can correct this a bit is by adding a third hinge in the centre of the door. The original door only had 2 (very heavy duty) hinges, but I don't mind adding a third.

The hinges I need would look just like these (flashed copper aka Japanned copper etc., 4 inches, 4 holes, ball tip):



If I can find hinges (I have 2 incomplete hinges missing only the ball-tip pins, and I'd need a third complete hinge) then I can build the jamb and install the door. I have the bronze weatherstripping, nails, and an antique strike plate already.


* The varnished dried much faster than anticipated, and I was able to do a full coat (both sides) in one day.

Salvaged Front Door Project Part 3 - Repairs, Stain, and Varnish

With the door fully stripped clean of the old finish, now I can turn my attention to all the woodworking aspects of the repairs. This includes a wedge shaped wood patch, filling nail holes, a plug patch (not shown), trimming the top and bottom of the door, and drilling a hole for the deadbolt.

Here you can see where a sliver of wood (a fairly large one) has been broken away from the door frame (at the top on the interior side). If this were smaller, it could be left as "character", or putty-filled, but since it was so large, it was a better candidate for a wood patch.



The hole was enlarged slightly and cleaned-up to have clean lines, then a scrap piece of antique BC Fir was cut and sanded to fit the hole. This was glued and clamped with waterproof exterior PVA glue.



I had made sure to match the wood grain, but since the piece was oversized, and at a slight angle, once it was trimmed and sanded flat, the grain no longer matched. The important part is that it's a nice tight fit, and that it's the same species. I will try to blend the finish to hide the repair as much as possible.



Not shown is another similar repair where I had to patch a shallow 3/4" round hole on the bottom edge of the door. I have no idea if this was for a bolt or for a security system, but the hole was only about 5/8" deep, clean/unfinished, and with no other screw holes near it. I simply cut a plug, hammered it in place, trimmed it, sanded it, and stained it.

One other problem with the door was that all 4 corners (the door upright side pieces) had about a 1/8 overhanging past the centre boards. This may or may not be a big deal (depending on the installation), but because I plan to use bronze weatherstripping, I need a straight/flat surface for the weatherstripping to work well. All 4 corners were trimmed flush with the centre boards (see photo above). I used a guide and a router for this, since there's no way to lift this door onto my dinky table saw, and a hand held circular saw would have made a very rough cut.



Once all the repairs were done, the entire door was given a coat of light stain. This is just enough to liven-up the colour, as well as blend together any light spots. It also helps to highlight the details in the mouldings, and it hides all the puttied nail holes.



VARNISH!

Most people tend to gravitate towards standard "Poly" (Polyurethane) varnish, or to these new water based acrylic finishes (which I absolutely hate) but for this door, I SPECIFICALLY wanted Yacht varnish (also known as spar varnish). I plan to use spar varnish for all the doors and floors (eventually) in the house. My father refinished his maple floors in the late 1970s using spar varnish (with a yellow-gold tint added to it) and the floors STILL LOOK GREAT over 30 years later. They have very light scuffing and scratches, but the colour, and the gloss are still excellent, and this sold me on the idea of using this varnish. When I was a teen, we finally got the floors upstairs installed (parquet), sanded, and finished, and they used some kind of Poly, and I hated the look and feel of it. It looked bland, and it felt very thin.

A comment also reminded me of another short "spar varnish story". My father had also done a refinishing job on some garage doors for a client/friend. He used spar varnish on them, and I believe it's been over 20 years (these are exposed to weather constantly) and they still look amazing. The client was amazed at how long the finish lasted, and how well it performed.

Some of the pros of spar varnish are that it contains UV blockers, it is also resistant to: salt water (it's designed for wooden boats), heat, abrasions, gasoline, diluted acids, and diluted alkalis. Another pro is that since it is oil based, it flows and becomes much smoother than a water based finish. It's also harder and more durable. It's also fairly easy to find, and very affordable (14$/quart, 40$/gal).

Cons: It is slow drying (6 hours touch-dry, 24 hours to recoat), it's messy for brush cleaning (oil based/paint thinner clean-up), it's very smelly, and 3 thin coats are recommended.

I should also add that as far as application, smell, and cleanup, spar varnish is about the same as Poly.

Because of the drying time needed, and the difficulty in flipping/rotating the door, it will take 6 days to varnish (3 coats per side at one day each).







This shows the modifications I had to make in order to fit the deadbolt. The moulding was in the way, so I had to remove it, trim it, and route it to match. I think it will look very good. I would have preferred not to need to do this at all, but the door only had the original skeleton key mortise lock, and that's not at all secure for a front door. The deadbolt I'm using is a salvaged antique YALE lock, and it uses a modern 5-pin tumbler lock (I've already had keys made for it).



The actual colour is not nearly this dark/bright (more like the photo above), but isn't that wood grain just simply gorgeous? To think this door was headed for the landfill! I even love the little nicks and scratches. The varnish is gloss, but it's photographed while it's still wet. It won't look exactly like this once it's done.

Salvaged Front Door Part 2 - Stripping (Part 2)

Since this particular door is so time consuming and incredibly heavy, I stripped one side at a time. This second part shows the stripping of the interior side of the door. This side went faster because it has simpler panel mouldings as well as no trim around the upper glass opening. There are mouldings that hold the glass, but they are plain, and they were stripped separately.

This side of the door seemed to be a matching old shellac and varnish finish, but it was about twice as dark as the reverse side.

Again, photo disclaimer: due to poor lighting, a lot of these photos have a very reddish or yellowish cast to them.



I have no idea why they did the finishing AFTER installing the hardware. In normal woodworking this is something we'd NEVER do.



Fist panel stripped. You can already see a huge colour difference.



Better lighting:

Also note: the blue cream carton is cut with a window opening on one side. The goopy old varnish is scraped into this for easy disposal.



Gelled finish nearly ready to remove.



Bottom half done. Please note the "water mark" in the lower right corner. This happens a lot when rinsing/wiping the door down. To fix this, you just go over it with the rinse solution and steel wool, and wipe it until the mark is gone. If you leave any of these blotchy areas, they will show later.



Door stripping DONE! Note the 4 mouldings for the glass.