It all started with the door, really, in the same way that plastic surgery might start with a simple nosejob and grow from there. Our New House came with a mostly functional door, and for a while it was adequate - it kept out small (and large) rodents, wandering strangers, and the weather (except for the small drafts that occasionally slipped in around the edges). It had some extra features that a lot of doors don't have - a small peephole (not that uncommon), a doorbell right in the door, and a bright brass mail slot. The small peephole was somewhat useful, though kind of redundant due to the large window right next to the front door; the doorbell was functional but annoying; but the bright brass mail slot sealed the fate of the front door. We grew tired of looking at it and dealing with our mail being deposited through the slot directly onto the floor (Becky got more tired of looking at it, and Bish got more tired of the floor mail), so Becky decided that a new door would be a good birthday present. Bish agreed that a new door would only be an improvement, so we ordered a new mailbox from Amazon. That might not make sense until you remember that our only mail receptacle was the bright brass mail slot in the door, and therefore a new door would mean a new mailbox, too. And since we were going to be upgrading the door and mailbox we might as well paint some of front of the house to match the new door and mailbox.
The Old Door
I've already described it, so let's look at the old door.
This picture shows our New House's face as it was when we bought it. Note the bland white door, and the shiny brass mail slot. Note also the old light and address numbers.
This is the inside view of the old door. Note the doorbell housing and the bright brass mail slot.
The New Mailbox
We went to a local Home Depot to see what our options for a new door were, and we looked through some catalogs and made our selections. We chose a fiberglass door with a nice glass insert. We ordered it with a mahogany finish and installation services. As mentioned above, we also ordered a new mailbox from Amazon. We knew that the mailbox had to go in before the new door, so we waited until the door installation was scheduled, then we installed the mailbox a day or two before the door installation (to give the mailman time to get used to the new mail receptacle).
This is the back of the new mailbox. Before mounting it to our New House I added some rubber bushings (made from old bike innertubes) so that it would not rattle and make noise when in use. Said bushings are secured with the silver thermal tape you see here. Keep reading, or just scroll down, to see the front of the new mailbox.
The New Door
The door installers came and installed the new door. Behold Becky's birthday door (and the new mailbox)!
Here you can see the new mailbox mounted to our New House. Note how well it matches our new
address numbers. And look at that beautiful mahogany finish on that door.
Hmmm...
Must be a pale variety of mahogany... Hmmm....
From the inside. No, that's not actually mahogany at all. Unknown to us, and not mentioned at all by anyone during our door ordering process, is that the doors from the company we ordered from do not come finished, despite the pictures in their catalog. Nope. Ya gotta finish 'em yourself. D'oh! Double d'oh!!
Unsurpisingly, the door frame was also not finished.
Note the nice art glass insert. It lets a lot more light into the room, and the red squares nicely match the reds in the room.
To compensate for the lack of finish the door company provides a self-staining kit. We specified mahogany, so we got a self-contained self-stain kit in mahogany. Everything needed for a beautiful finish is in this one box - stain, brushes, sponge brush, instructions, protective clearcoat - everything. Well, except for staining rags, tape, floor protection, and experience with such self-stain kits. We were a bit disappointed and annoyed at learning we would have to finish the door ourselves, but that's the way it was so we dealt with it and dove in.
More Flushing Woes
We'll get back to finishing with the finishing of the door, but first we're going to take a brief look at some minor plumbing repair. You may remember from
this Episode that we had to replace the flush cartridge in our upstairs bathroom toilet. Recently, we noticed that the 1/2 bath downstairs was having it's own flushing woes - it just didn't seem to be producing the water pressure it should have been producing when flushed. So we replaced the flush cartridge, inlet screen, and duckbill - all of which conveniently come in one handy-dandy kit.
You're viewing the old inlet screen and duckbill. Notice the iron oxide boulder blocking one of the holes in the inlet screen.
After the new parts were installed and properly adjusted our 1/2 bath toilet works like a champ.
Finishing The Finish
And now back to the door. We carefully followed the multi-step instructions included with the self-staining kit (as far as we understood them, that is), and the end result is a nice mahogany finish on our new door. The finishing process was messy and annoying, and it required the door to remain open while we were waiting for various coats to dry, so we had to shut all of the cats up inside closed rooms. We also painted the door frame and some of the front-facing trim. The exact color is called Red Red Wine (Behr Premium exterior paint + primer). And since we were going to all this trouble to spruce up the entry way we decided to also touch up the main house color around the door and paint the front step to match. Again we chose a Behr Premium exterior paint + primer - this time the color is called Viejo White, and it's a pretty good match to the existing paint.
Behold the finished facelift!
The Harvest
We have been harvesting oranges and tangerines from the two trees that our neighbor, Peter, gave us way back when we were new to the neighborhood (see
this Episode). What you see in the picture below is the second successful harvest.
Orange you glad I didn't say
bIsh
