Our Front Door

Our front door has always been a problem. The floor of the entrance hall is lower than the courtyard, and when rain is coming from the wrong direction we get a lot of water coming under the door. This is particularly annoying after having paid so much money on a roof to make the place watertight.

I have been reluctant to spend too much time or effort fixing this - the door will have to be replaced once we start work in earnest, because it has no insulation capacity at all. However, a couple of really heavy storms and resultant mopping has convinced me it's time to act.

I have long known what needs doing - I don't know exactly what the piece is called, but we need something to deflect the rain that runs down the door and into the house. The main difficulty is the fact the door is panelled, and anything done needs to take this into account.

I started by carving three pieces to fill in the panelling and bring it level with the rest of the door. This took a while because of my lack of ability at woodworking. However, after a couple of hours work I had this bit done.

I next cut my main piece of wood. Because I have a benchsaw, I can do straight cuts (if it wasn't for the benchsaw and its ability to do long straight cuts I wouldn't have considered starting this job). This meant that from one piece of wood I could cut two pieces with a 45 degree angle, which I glued and screwed together to make a solid block of wood.

Then I sanded the two pieces, applied some filler - and screwed it to the door.

Job almost done! All I need to do now is buy some cement and fill in the worn away step, and then apply a rubber tread. As I write this (lunchtime on Bastille Day) it looks like rain, so I think I am about to find out how good my work has been.


Simon

(This blog entry is written for my father, who will be delighted to see I have developed any sort of ability at woodworking. He has always been frustratingly clever at this sort of thing)