Almost two years in after all the retrofit and follow-up, the front door was still the ugly [albeit nicely insulated] assembly I had thrown together at the beginning. To its great credit it had survived two removal and replacement cycles, a bunch of rough frame trimming, concrete-saw exhaust, numerous big screws slammed through its perimeter, and a generous share of water issues. Since it appeared to be robust enough for the long haul, it was time to finish the job as I'd tentatively planned at the beginning. |
The hack here was based on what I'd learned from finishing the basement door threshold: Adding water-based urethane on *top* of latex paint works really well, as the urethane soaks down into the paint and bonds everything with a smooth and nicely water-resistant surface. So in addition to the paint, two "invisible" coats of urethane went on too. Solvent-based urethane might have attacked the foam, but the water-based didn't. |
Finally the door could be re-hung, and no longer nearly as ugly! Yes, the painters tape came off the little windows. |
Said windows were still only single-pane and definitely ran a bit
cold in winter, so later on I decided to add an extra pane similar to
what had been done on the two basement windows. Outside would be the
logical place, keeping all the weird hacks to one side of the door.
I had more of the mottled plastic stuff from the basement window jobs
but I wanted this one such that you could actually see through it, so
I needed another sheet of something clear from the local big-box.
I took the "cheap choice" of the generic acrylic sheet rather than the more expensive Lexan polycarbonate, and almost regretted it. Trying to saber-saw the stuff as I'd done with the other sheet started to shatter pieces out along the cut, and I quickly gave up on that. Crap, I thought, this is the type of transparent plastic that's *not* easy to work. But I managed to scribe another line just clear of the damaged area and then ran a carbide Dremel wheel carefully along it, half-cutting and half-melting a deep enough slot that I could then break the piece fairly cleanly along that line. Whew. |
And the thermal difference was already rather profound, with about 50F on the other side! I'd have to wait to see how it would do in really cold weather. I also still had the piece of foam I could hang on the *inside*, for those hunker-down times I didn't care about turning the entire house into an effectively windowless igloo. Claustrophobia city for some, but the way I happen to like it. |