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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

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My Salvaged Door (#2 – Paned Glass)

February 7, 2011

Completed, painted door. Curtain hangs over it during the winter as an extra layer of insulation, and for privacy in evenings during the summer. Well, I guess I have a mild-obsession with old doors. That’s where it starts. Heavy, hardwood, authentically glass paned, leaded doors are just next to impossible to find anymore (unless you’re willing to pay big) so I’ve taken to getting my fix at salvage shops and garage sales. I showed you the new front door I found and had installed (read about that here) but I’ve also been meaning to give you a peek at everything involved with replacing the door between the living room and the sunroom. See it here? Discolored, distasteful, an eyesore. And that’s the seller’s stuff, not my own.

Living Room with the seller's furniture. That door? It separates the living room and the sunroom. Discolored and ugly.

This particular find was a paned glass door from a garage sale in Rochester. I found it about 2 months before I actually closed on my house – I knew I wanted a door just like this in that doorway, so I grabbed it because it was $2 (yes, really) but keep in mind that I didn’t actually have any doorway measurements. It wasn’t trashed, but it wasn’t in perfect condition.

What was wrong?

  1. Top of door was beginning to warp apart.
  2. Two panes were broken.
  3. Chipping paint.
  4. No knob, lock, or hinges.

Anyways, yes, so I brought it back to my then apartment, and slowly (oh so slowly) chiseled paint off it with a single razor blade in my garage. There were at least 2 coats on there, and no, I couldn’t get it down to the bare wood by myself (but gave myself an A for effort). That whole messy process looked like this:

New old door and Jeepster fighting for space in the apartment garage. Check out how much I had already removed and let fall to the ground in this photo. I'm so messy.

When it was time to move from the apartment, I transported it over to my new house and let it stay in the garage. After 3 months of living with the old door (just to make sure I really wanted it gone-zo), I proceeded with a plan to finish installing the new door. OH, sidenote, can you believe that the door was actually the correct width for the opening? While it was a standard 32″W, it did end up being 2 inches off in height, which you’ll see we corrected. Width matching is the important part, and I nailed it, er, I was very lucky all things considered.

Enter my new best friend, paint stripper. The Citristrip orange-scented, less-harsh paint remover worked wonders (and FYI, is safe to use indoors and in less-ventilated areas, hurray). It’s a thick concoction, and I painted it on goopily manner (sorry, self-made words happen). After not too long, the paint that was remaining began to bubble up. I promptly removed it with a scraper. I did this apply and scrape treatment a few times to both side to ensure I was getting as much off as possible.

Balanced the door on several plastic buckets in the garage so that the remover had gravity working in it's favor.

Following paint removal, I sanded like crazy. I spent a lot of time on this step (hours) but for good reason — it really made for a nicer, smoother painting surface in the end. I gently power sanded the larger surfaces (I realize that sounds like an oxymoron, I just mean you should sand with a nice fine paper) and finished touching up the panes by hand (on both sides of the door, mind you).

After the paint was removed, I fixed the top of the door, which I don’t have close-up photos of, but the top corner of the frame was separating a little bit. I had no idea how to fix something like this securely, but we put our trust in Gorilla Glue and some large, strong clamps, and were pleased to see how strong it was in the end. Obviously if it hadn’t worked out, I wouldn’t have used the door. I guess I should add in here that neither of us are professional contractors, construction workers, or door installers and we’ve really just learned a lot by reading and trying things out as we go.

Gluing, clamping, and fixing the top of the door. This worked like a cast and we let it sit and dry for a full week before proceeding with installation.

The paned door felt very strong once the glue had dried and the clamps were removed, so next up was to remove the existing door. It came off the frame with ease, and I was actually able to sell it (and all other doors I’ve removed) on Craigslist ($50 a piece, if you’re curious), which helped to offset other installation costs. And fortunately, as I mentioned, the width was right on so once we had used some wedges beneath the door to raise the door to the point it needed to be at to fit in the opening. (We used books to serve as wedges). By attaching the hinges to the door first, we were able to swing them to line up on the frame where they needed to be attached, and used a pencil to mark off the spots. The scariest part of the whole project, with most potential screw-up was when we were attaching the door to the frame (no pun intended); we started with a screw in the top hinge, and then put one in the bottom hinge. We swung the door around a LOT during this part of the installation process, so if we noticed any unusual fitting, it still would have been early enough in the process to make adjustments. We left the middle hinge until the last, since it doesn’t do all that much except add extra reinforcement in this case. Fortunately it all worked out pretty well for us.

Now, I said the door was too short. Solution? We hung the door in the middle of the vertical space, and were suggested to add door extender plates to the top and bottom of the door. You can buy them at most home improvement stores, so I bought a sweeper plate to attach to the bottom of the door, and a cap to add to the top. They come long enough to fit the width of any door, and are intended to be cut-to-length. And there was a nice benefit to having added these pieces; they come with a rubbery insert which acts as extra insulation. While most of the options I observed were available come in stainless finish, the metal is paintable after a gentle sand; I spray painted mine white prior to installation to keep things neat, and have had no problems with the finish wearing away in the last year. Sorry for not having more information about brands that we used for the extenders, I’d share it if I knew for certain.

The panes that were broken were pretty easy to fix; I removed the wooden framework verrrry carefully and measured how large the glass pane had to be cut to fit. I fortunately found a piece of the old shattered pane left in the window frame that I took with me as a sample for the width I needed to duplicate. I picked up some glazing putty at the store while I was there getting the glass cut; reason being, if you put a little bit of glazing putty along the edge of the panes, it helps hold the glass in place and keep it from shaking. And as soon as the panes were back in place, I happily painted my new-old door white; a gentle coat of primer and two coats of off-the-shelf white paint.

Knobs and locks were the last things to do: I swapped out an antique glass knob from an upstairs closet and use it as the main doorknob (I’m way happy seeing this every day instead of knowing it’s hidden upstairs). I bought a modernized mortise lock kit to fit into the door and make it lockable/functional, so, it’s pretty with the glass and antique hardware, but also practical for security purposes.

A lovely glass knob, borrowed from an upstairs closet door. I'd rather have it in a more visible place.

I continue to be amazed with the amount of light that’s allowed into my living room during the day; painting the trim around the door obviously helped a lot too, but the door really makes the room feel bigger, and the sunroom much more accessible.

Completed, painted door. Curtain hangs over it during the winter as an extra layer of insulation, and for privacy in evenings during the summer.

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DIY  / Living Room  / Sunroom

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. I've been a freelancer writer for 10+ years and you can find my work on popular home and garden sites, like HGTV.com. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note.

10 Comments


Kate
February 7, 2011 at 9:17 am
Reply

I’m jealous of your door! I love doors that have panes of glass like that. They have so much more character and let in tons of light. I know it was tons of work, but it shows and it was definitely worth it. I just love it.



    Emily
    February 7, 2011 at 9:26 am

    Thanks Kate! Between adding the door and changing the trim with white paint, the room looks completely different… wall paint aside, even.

Design Elements
February 7, 2011 at 11:27 am
Reply

wonderful door! lovely greetings from Bulgaria



    Emily
    February 7, 2011 at 11:31 am

    Thank you!

Irene
February 7, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Reply

Amazing!

It’s fantastic that not only were you able to spruce up a blah door, but you were also able to reuse soemthing already in your home rather than buying new. I love it!



    Emily
    February 7, 2011 at 12:55 pm

    I’m glad you like it! Thanks for visiting and commenting, Irene!

Fred @ One Project Closer
February 7, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Reply

Beautiful restoration! I love old doors too – especially older spanish-style doors like those found in Central America. You’ve reminded me to get out some door photos I tool while in CA last year that I’ve been meaning to post. Awesome work.



    Emily
    February 7, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    Thanks Fred! Looking forward to seeing your door photos.

Cait @ Hernando House
February 9, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Reply

I love that kind of door! Good job, it really turned out great! One day when I haven’t just made a curtain for my back door (which is only half glass) I might search around for a door like that for our house…



    Emily
    February 9, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    Thanks! I have one of those half-glass doors too. It happens to be in desperate need for a curtain so I’ll go check for how you did yours :)

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