Our kitchen door was in serious need of replacement and we wanted to tackle it before winter, so this weekend I started the project and got about half way done. This part of the kitchen was an addition at some point, and in that addition this was a single door. But the door was later widened to a double with only one side that opened. It was poorly installed (no flashing!) and in a rainstorm water would pool on the top of the door slab and pour down the inside of the door. The bottom of both doors was rotten. Also, the door opened in a very inconvenient direction. Finally, we wanted to go back to a single door to gain space for more cabinets when we replace those.
A friend turned us on to Building Supplies Outlet in Peabody that has hundreds of doors. We picked ours up last weekend and I stained the inside and Carol painted the outside.
We had a moderate ant infestation in the kitchen this summer. When my friend Connie was over a few weeks ago she taught us that carpenter ants live in rotten wood and that poisoning them doesn't do any good - you have to get rid of the habitat to get rid of the ants for good. There was rot in the moulding around the door on the outside as well as in the doors themselves, so we suspected that our ants were carpenter ants and were living in the door framing.
Saturday I started by removing the old door. It came out pretty easily and revealed that indeed there was a large ant colony in the header above the door. I removed all of the rotten framing pieces and replaced them, which was a lot easier than I thought it might be before I started. We still have some rot in the bottom of the house corner near the door. I've ordered some rot terminator and epoxy that "rescues" wood that would be too difficult to replace. When I close it all up I'll leave some ant poison in the framing.
The siding size we have isn't available at the big box stores, so I couldn't finish the exterior this weekend. I'll have to go to a real lumber yard before work on a weekday.
I won't finish the interior right now. I'm in a big crunch at work for the next month. After that we'll tackle the rest of the kitchen remodel and I'll probably tear out and replace all of the plaster and drywall anyway so we can insulate at the same time.
I'm happy with how far I got this weekend. We have plans for the next few weekends so I'm not sure when I'll get the siding done. I have the exposed parts protected with plastic for now.
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