One Door Closes, Another Opens

Another renovation post but at least I intersperse them with weaving reports!

We changed out our old single pane windows last March/09 (and posted about in April) and the patio doors had to wait a bit longer. The new energy efficient windows reduced our monthly heating bill by $30 a month. (That's $360 a year!) We have three patio doors in the house and two are regular six foot doors. Both of these were single pane so we were looking forward to getting rid of those. The big eight footer was double pane but simply dark and nasty looking. Also very heavy to roll back and it had no screen door anymore.

So, here are the new doors waiting for installation:

We also ordered three new doors for the front and back door to the house and a new door for the garden shed. This past Wednesday, three nice fellows showed up, Sean, Al and Bill, and started to work. In short order they had all the doors off and the new ones ready to go in. It was a darn good thing it was a nice day and reasonably warm! I still wore my fleecy vest to keep a chill at bay! Our poor little dog spent most of his time stuffed in a room with the door closed wondering what the heck was going on out there??!! At nearly 13 years old, Connor means well but he gets under foot and being deaf, he can't hear anything... so a guy has to get his nose in there to check things out close up.

Our old front door was straight out of the 70's with its textured glass in a lovely amber colour. Turned everything in the entry way yellow gold and since the old wall covering in the stairwell was dark cedar, it had all the appeal of a cave! ( more on stairwell in the future...)

Here's the new front door with an art deco pattern glass panel:

They ran out of the new cedar trim in the burgundy stain so that will be added soon. The front step is going to be scraped down and repainted but we couldn't see the point doing it with all the traffic going in and out right now. It will most likely it will match the new cedar trim and we have the 25 year guarantee stain already.

Here's a close up of the glass as it waited for installation in the morning sun.

Now onto the patio doors. I found this older picture taken during the start of the kitchen reno to show the older door just off the dining room area. The total length is eight feet. Dark, heavy and out of date:

Here's the crew shifting the new patio door into place. Nice guys and they worked hard all day doing the six doors. Looks brighter already!

This picture below is the door in the living room. I sit near this one and could feel the cold radiating off it when we watch TV at night. No lap throw in use since this went in! Now the room is looking a little bare as we are prepping it for painting. Shawn our painter is coming tomorrow and will get the first coat on. We have to be more neutral in the colour choice in here as we aren't sure what our future furniture will be. We are going with the same colour as the kitchen cabinets 'hazel nut cream' by Behr Paint. At least there will be continuity between kitchen and living room. It works well with the carpeting and the golden paneling around the fireplace.

The last door went in by my loom in the studio. No more chills here either! Its also nice how much sounds from outside are now reduced. We live on a curvy road that seems to be on the motorcycle circuit when the sun shines....its like putting a muffler on the house :)

The doors still have to be properly caulked and then trims replaced. We need quite a bit of trim and moldings and that seems to be a problem right now for an unusual reason! With that terrible earthquake in Chile recently, the import of 90% of Canada's ( and maybe the USA's) trims and moldings came to a halt. Seems Chile had cornered the market on providing the building industry here all of its interior trims and moldings. Prices have gone up 20% already and we must decide tonight which ones we want and move quickly to get what we need. I think this demonstrates how we are truly a global economy now and all inter-related!

I'll leave you with a picture of our little yard rabbit. Naturally, he (she?) is called Peter and the tail is a fluffy white.

Next post, back to weaving...