Operation Fort Knox: The Back Door

Posted August 25, 2010 // Kitchen Updates, La Casa

One of the items on our to-do list since moving into our home was to replace the back door.  The door we had was original to the house and solid wood. It was very sturdy, except for the standard, single pane glass windows in it. Someone else got to it before we could over Easter weekend. A smashed kitchen door and a stolen television (among other things) was enough motivation to launch Operation Fort Knox around the Whited household.

We of course started by replacing that back door, which proved to be one of the largest DIY projects we’ve taken on.  The whole process involved blood, sweat, tears and cursing This Old House (it was a video on their website that made us think we could replace the door ourselves in just an hour or two). 

We quickly learned that our 60-year-old door was not “pre-hung” so the video was not for us. We ended up using a crowbar to bang out a hole in our house that was large enough to fit our newly purchased pre-hung kitchen door.  Once it was in and mounted, a little spray foam, a little trim work and a new door bell (the old one didn’t survive our assault on the original door) and we were back in business. 

This all happened during our pre-blogging days so we don’t have a photo of the original door or all the drama, but here’s the after shot that we are pretty proud of.

How much it all cost:

We don’t really want to calculate the man and woman hours involved but we want to paint an accurate picture for anyone out there who may be about to embark on a similar project. Just getting the old door out, creating a proper sized opening and securing the new one enough to sleep soundly that night took about 6 hours.  The spray foam, rewiring of the door bell, hanging interior molding, caulking and painting all took another 2-3 hours on another night after work. And the final fix of exterior trim work, a new threshold, caulk, paint, and repairing our siding, took another 2 hours or so on a subsequent weekend.

Would we DIY it again? Amy would to save the money; Chad probably wouldn’t to save his sanity.

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