Shut the front door!

And it only took 13 months ;-) The last thing to go in was the front door. We ordered the Jasper door from Atlantic Windows with a transom window and a clear window in the door. (So not like the Jasper door in this picture!)

When the door arrived a couple of months ago, there were some problems with it – the hinges were on the wrong side, and they had installed the wrong window. And then we discovered another bigger problem. We were planning to pair the front door from Atlantic Windows with a window on each side from Polytech (which we hadn’t yet ordered). But one manufacturer’s white isn’t another manufacturer’s white, and the difference between the white on the door frame and the white on the windows was pretty obvious. Also, the transom window over the door wasn’t going to line up properly with the transom windows on the side windows.

What to do……

I knew that if we stuck with our original plan, I would regret it every time I drove up to the house. Afterall, the front door is like a welcome sign into your home, and if it’s not working for you, then it’s not saying “Welcome” so much as it’s saying “I’m the wrong door”.

It took a few mock-ups and some persuading & support from Facebook friends, but in the end we took a bit of a loss on the original door and placed a new order from Atlantic for a door with two sidelights and a transom straight across the top. Which is the configuration I wanted right from the start of the house building process. And you know what they say – happy wife, happy life :-)

The new and improved front door arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I’m happy to report that it’s perfect! It’s also incredibly heavy, so luckily Brian was able to recruit a strong guy to help him put it into place :-) And here it is, complete with a bright green paint job (Benjamin Moore Douglas Fir) and a Baldwin Hardware handle set from Bargain Harley’s in Berwick.

I can’t decide if the best thing about the front door going in is that the house is finally weather-tight, or that we don’t have to listen to Tyvek flapping in the wind anymore!

And all was not lost with the original front door. We were able to get a credit for the door itself, but we had to suck up the cost of the door frame, which wasn’t returnable. So Brian removed the transom window from the door frame and converted it into a little east-facing window in the downstairs bedroom.

Other than installing the front door and the little window, Brian has mainly been working on the plumbing and electrical for the last month or two. So there really hasn’t been anything very exciting to share. But at least that means that we’re getting closer to installing drywall and being able to finally get to work on the inside of the house!