So, I told you about removing the old storm door here.

Now it’s time to put on the new door!

First things first, read the directions! Most of the time, we (men) don’t need directions when assembling things. This was an exception for me.

There were specific instructions that came with the door that needed to be followed. However, there were a few extra steps we had to improvise. If your house is anything like all the rest of the houses in the world, I’d be prepared to improvise as well.

These “one-size fits most” doors hardly ever fit most doors perfectly without some adjustment. That being said, please measure your door and buy the corresponding size at the store, okay?

Before starting “Step 1” in the instructions, I cleaned the door jamb where the new frame was going to go. It was “gross.” (Melissa’s word.)

Step 1 involves starting to put up the header of the door frame. I centered the header in the opening and put a screw in to hold it, only on the hinge side.

Next, I measured the height of the doorway for the side frame pieces. The door we bought required a little bit of adjusting. I used the reciprocating saw and grinder that my Grandpa gave me to cut the side with the hinge to length. Melissa’s cousins were at the house and Jess helped me with holding things and reading directions. (Don’t worry, we all wore eye protection and they turned their faces away from any sparks.)

Then, I attached the hinged frame side to the door. For this, I used the self-tapping sheet metal screws that were sent with the door kit.

Now is the part where you need another helper. I held the door in place, and Melissa used a pencil to mark all of the holes in the frame, so that I could pre-drill the holes before putting the screws in.

I held the door up again and Melissa put a screw in the top and bottom holes to attach the frame with the hinge (and door) to the jamb temporarily.

Once those two screws were in place, I let go of the door and relieved Melissa for the remaining screws.

This is when I noticed the first problem. I measured the door frame before we bought the new door. I must have measured the size of the old door, which was 36″. However, I did not measure the door jamb and assumed the frame would be the right size. It was not…

We were pretty frustrated at this point, so no photos got taken to document, but I’ll just tell you that we had about an inch gap between our new door and the new frame, if we attached the frame directly to the door jamb. Not workable at all.

So naturally, I needed to make a spacer to make the door opening fit the new frame size. During this dumpster diving experience, I happened to rescue some scrap 1″ x 2″ pine boards that were used for slats in a bed. For a perfect fit, I ripped the salvaged board to the right width and thickness using my table saw. I did this twice because the slats weren’t long enough to fill the gap the entire height of the door so I had to use two, one of top of the other. You can see how I spliced them together here (see the two screws close together with the slightly different colored wood?):

After my spacers were the right width, thickness, and height, I held the new door frame up and used my pencil to mark the holes for the deadbolt and latch.

Then I used my SoniCrafter Tool to cut those spaces out.

Next I tried a trial fitting and found out that the second, shorter spacer was a little bit too thick, because like everything else in the world, the frame wasn’t perfectly square.

This gave me the perfect chance to use one of the hand planers that my grandparents gave me for Christmas last year. I will post about them at a later date. But I used the more modern one to remove a little bit of width from the smaller spacer. Melissa was excited about this because she likes the curly strips of wood that are the result of hand planing. She even saved one.

Once the spacers were finally the right size, I secured them in place with some wood screws. Then, Melissa painted the spacer with the trim paint, matching the interior door trim next to it.

She had a little help for that part.

After two coats and 24 hours of drying time (probably overkill, but that’s when I could get back to it), I was able to put the door frame up.

Now that it fit properly, it was time to put the hardware on the door. The hardware kit came with a paddle head drill bit and a template for drilling. Following instructions, I taped the template to the door and then use a pin punch to mark the center of each place to drill. I also needed a 1/8″ bit, but it wasn’t included in the hardware kit.

Melissa liked how it looked with all the holes drilled. I think she was surprised at how many were needed. She was amazed with the engineering of the everyday items we take for granted, like all of the handle hardware.

After drilling the holes out, I followed the instructions to put all of the hardware for the handle, lock, and latch together.

And you know what? It opened, latched, and locked like a charm. Finally.

I stopped at this point to clean up the metal shavings from drilling the holes because Melissa was afraid they’d get on our shoes and we’d track them inside, and then step on them barefoot.

The next part of this project was to install the door sweep. This is the part at the bottom that makes the door seal with the door sill. Without it, the door isn’t all that airtight. Or watertight. Or attractive.

The sweep had holes that allowed a little bit of movement when securing with screws.  I spaced the sweep about right and put my screws in the middle of the fastening holes. Once the screws were started, I adjusted the sweep to its final place.

Almost finished. I needed to put the pneumatic closer on. The directions weren’t very clear, and left a little bit up to the installer. The part that it didn’t specify very well was where the brackets height position. So I put it up where it wouldn’t interfere with anything on the door.

Melissa helped tighten the adjustable control.

 

We also had to put the handle of the top, which allows us to pull the screen door down. It’s the kind that disappears in there like magic.

And we had to clean it because there was a weird impression on the glass from being in the box.

Oh, and add the “plastic drip cap screw covers,” or whatever those things are called.

And that’s what it took to get a nice new storm door. It made a pretty awesome mess.

 

Still, we think it ended up being pretty awesome in itself.

I mean, there’s a disappearing screen door in there!

We kept all of the hardware to the old door. It is still functional, we just didn’t have a key to open it from the exterior; and we stray towards silver/nickel finishes instead of brass. We’d like to try and fix it up to sell I think.

What have you done to spruce up the exterior of your house lately? Landscaping? Painting? Siding? New mailbox? Let us know and how it went. Do your projects always seem to fight back, too?