Brand new front entry door

Last week, we got our front door switched out for a new one!  The switch also included a brand new doorjamb, threshold, and other door-related terminology.  =]

The end results?

• The front of the house looks noticeably nicer!
• The living room is much warmer now that there is no draft
• The front door does not look nasty, filthy, and gross.
• More light enters the home
• The door locks properly

Makes me almost wish we changed out the front door sooner!

  A picture of our old front door removed, waiting for the new door to be installed

We decided to go with a fiberglass door because wooden door is way too high maintenance (sand and re-stain every few years), is heavier, and warps depending on the temperature. I can imagine a lot of traditional people preferring wood, simply because wood is "nicer" and "fancier", but I really don't see how killing trees is "nice", and I also go with what is practical.
We didn't want a steel door since they are "colder" and dents very easily.
The benefits of fiberglass are:  they won't crack, warp, swell, rot or peel, are up to 3x stronger than their wooden counterparts, do not need the constant maintenance, and are resistant to attack by insects and microorganisms.

We could have gotten a fiberglass door that looked just like a wooden door (with the wood grain) but we decided that a white door is good enough.  A white door makes our dark living area seem brighter and is much more affordable.  My only "must have" was that the door needed to have the half-circle glass window at the top.  I think windows on doors are so pretty but I didn't want one where it allows people to peek into my house, so the half-circle glass at the very top of the door fit the bill!  The window also allows light to enter our home, which we really need.  I hate that our house is so dark.


Ready to see the Before and After photos??

BEFORE:

 The door is filthy and the threshold is a wreck

AFTER:

Door looks much nicer!

 And the threshold has been fixed too!

BEFORE:

Broken doorjamb.  The previous owner busted it, and we tried to "fix" it.
This prevented the door for locking properly sometimes.

AFTER:

Door jamb is intact and good as new!  Does this mean our door will lock properly now?!

BEFORE:

View of the filthy backside of the door, wrecked threshold, and damaged moulding

AFTER:

Nice and clean!  And light streams in too =)


BEFORE:

 The black security door screams "ghetto".
The door also did not go all the way to the top,
so it did not stop mosquitoes from entering during the summertime.

AFTER:

The front of our house suddenly does not look scary ghetto.
We will need to get a cute, white screen door before the summertime to keep out mosquitoes and flies.

Despite our original door being a "standard sized" door (which is 80" x 36" x 1 3/4"), our doorjamb was not standard sized.  It was cheaper to just custom order a door that fit our doorjamb, than it would have been to change our doorjamb to fit a standard sized door.
It took about 2.5 weeks for our custom door to be made and delivered, and the door-install guy took about 3 hours to install the door.
I was very happy with our door-install guy.  He was very resourceful and was able to transfer our existing doorknob onto the new door, despite the doorknob missing pieces and was improperly installed on the original door (so it was difficult to remove!).  He also was able to rebuild our threshold by using some existing threshold pieces that he dug up, combined with some new material, and he did it without charging us extra!  (we were supposed to figure out/build the threshold ourselves!).  He also did the door installation without getting a fine layer of dust around the entire house, and actually left the work area cleaner than when he arrived.

I'm glad the entire process went smoothly and I did not have any complaints  (I always have something to complain about, so that says a lot.  =D).
We estimated around $1K for the entire project, but I think it came out closer to $800.  Very successful indeed!