The New Front Door

It's been a while since we've made any progress that affects the exterior of the house, but we finally have new front and back doors. The front door in particular was ugly, either with or without its aluminum screen - so ugly that it never got into any photos and I had trouble finding a "before" image. This is the best I could do, cropped from a larger image of the porch:

It was not a welcoming sight. The opening was not standard, which meant we couldn't go with a pre-hung door, but on the positive side it allowed us to design our own replacement. The drawback was waiting for it to be manufactured. Finally, it arrived last week, and I spent hours in the basement painting the exterior and clear-coating the interior. Yesterday, Randy the carpenter installed it, and this morning we attached our new letterbox beside it. (The old door had a mail slot.) So now it looks like this:

From the street, it complements the house.

From the inside, it completely changes what was a very dark hall into a much more pleasant space.

When I originally photographed the hall from the stairs, I had to open the door to get enough light.

                                                             Not now!

These last two photos also show the changes to the floor, walls, and the stair rail. We've had to replace the newel post, but found all but one of the original spindles intact under the sheathing. Needless to say, the stair treads are among the tasks still to do.