Lanai door - really almost done (really)

 

The "static cling" based window film turned out "ok" on the door. At first I wasn't sure it blocked the view as much as desired but after checking in different light conditions it is fine. I could still do some etching on the exterior of the glass if needed but it should be fine for now. To install the film you just need to clean the glass well and then spray the glass with water - peel off a protective backing from the film and place/smooth it with a squeegee to get it to stay in place and remove bubbles from between the glass and film. I used an exacto knife to trim the film to exact size (or at least as close as my ability allowed).

Since I had redone the flooring, I need to deal with the gap at the bottom of the door.  The image below is the gap with threshold. The threshold is one which has a rail that you mount to floor and the threshold snaps into it.  Here I have the threshold pressed down as much as possible. I can leave it raised a bit when I mount the rail with some construction adhesive - I tested that a bit and it seems tight to the door bottom.  I had consider trying to find some type of felt or similar that would take up the gap but I just don't like that as I think about it.  The gap is roughly < 1/8" so most of the door sweeps from Lowes, etc would be really really tight.  The threshold I bought does work with offset floor heights.  Still pondering the final solution a bit - I comforted my wife with "only small lizards get in now".   We'll see which gets fixed first - this bit of gap or the paint around the door / touch ups on the door.

The below picture seems odd to me but it is a vertical down picture of the floor and the threshold area. I left the threshold a bit out of place to better visualize the floor height difference.

And here is a pic of the door with a piece of threshold cut to width and simply resting in place. It isn't laying straight since the seals at the edge of the door like to push it a bit - I'll deal with that when I mount the snap rail to the floor.

This is another project which has been hanging around unfinished for way too long. Each weekend moves it closer to completion at least. 

Door stopper options - trying something new

I decided to try something different than the normal door stoppers that screw into your baseboard.  Why?  I guess because I can..  The hope is it would have a cleaner look and not prevent any type of snag hazard.  I used these items on our master bedroom closet doors - which are not overly wide and are very light.  Some of the reviews I read indicated they might not be a great fit for solid core doors or doors with a potential to be slammed much (i.e. young kids). I'll agree with that - forcing past the set point would strain the hinges and likely cause damage at some point.

These do have a decent amount of adjustment possible though which was nice. One closet door I just wanted to prevent from hitting the wall but the second door could hit a painting if we were careless.  We'll see if these result in damage to the trim over time - hoping not.

These simply go above the hinge and your existing hinge pin goes through it - note that the hinge pin won't end up going as far down in the hinge as before - with a heavier / wider door you might want to find long hinge pins if available or find a way to extend the existing pins.

And yes, you'll notice I am missing the rosettes at the top of the trim as I mentioned in a different post.. working on those still. I also need to do  some hole filling and touch up painting.

Wishing everyone a blessed day!

Scott 

 

Doorway rosettes and Lowes delivery

 I've been slowly working my way through our house and replacing flooring, painting and we had decided on some more ornate trim for the interior doors (plus paint doors and trim in white).

I completed most of the master bath and master bedroom trim minus some floor trim, rosettes on outside of closet doors and still needed to paint and trim the door to the lanai. I needed more trim and rosettes though - lets call some of my initial attempts "practice work".  Trying to find a good way to quickly/easily strip off the paint from my worse mistakes was a great way to spend money on new tools/accessories, waste time and make a bigger mess with some of the rosettes and door trim. I can't quite get myself to just trash all of them but I did listen to the advise of my wonderful wife and father as well - order new stuff so I can just get it done.

This is good advice but even it comes with problems. I used the "pick up at store" option for the door trim since this time I couldn't find a way to get free shipping.  The trim that was waiting for me at the store was the correct trim but the people picking don't really check the items for quality so some had a number of spots I had to fill with wood putty and sand before I can do much.

For the top corner pieces for the doors, I was able to order and get free shipping - in fact, it didn't offer me an option for pickup at store because it looks like it had to come from a nearby store instead of my normal location.  What I ordered are pieces with a flower shape - what I ended up getting was a mix of the flower shape (bottom of below picture) and a different shape.  I was perplexed at first and then realized that the "wrong" items actually are marked with the same item/model # as the correct ones.  So if someone just had a bunch of these face down and sticker up - they would get a random selection of the 2 items.  I need to contact Lowes to correct this - hope next time it works out correct.  Fortunately, this isn't that important in the grand scheme of life so not really a big deal.

And just in case this helps someone else; I had used a mix of latex paint and polyurethane which I had sprayed the initial trim and rosettes with.  A low odor, weaker paint stripper didn't work great.  Nor does a soda blaster work great in this case.  A drill with brass or steel wire wheel works but can damage the trim and effectively remove detail from the rosettes pretty quickly.  With the grooves in the trim and the details in the rosettes - it is hard to scrape in an effective fashion.  For the door trim, a drill with a nylon wheel actually worked pretty well and was less prone to damaging the wood.   For the rosettes, I'm slowly (trying to fix) some of them with a file (to recreate the grooves) and picked up a small wood carving set as well (i.e. used the opportunity to justify the need for a few more small tools).  For now, I'll focus on doing a better job spraying the new rosettes now that I know what works/doesn't..   Don't paint anything when the temps and humidity are high..

The end result is supposed to look like the picture below - note that I still have a bit of caulking/filler and touch up painting to do.

Below is a pic from the outside of the same door prior to putting up the door trim and rosettes - end result after adding trim is pretty much like the above picture.

Thanks for reading..

Scott