Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Front Door

I have been thinking a lot about a different front door. This is the current state of affairs.

Close-up on the 3-over-3 door. Notice the extra molding around the entry. Between that and the placement of the non-working door bell, I feel confident the front door was once much larger.



I think I want an elegant double tombstone door, like these pretties from my neighborhood.

I like this front porch too and the bright red color:

These people have a breeze-way entrance that caught our eye, for the kitchen entrance:

Another contrasting color on the door:



I'm not a huge fan of this colonial-style door on this house. This green house is right next door to the yellow house above.The colonial door on this house seems to work with the front porch:
I'm going to use this as an excuse to visit Brimfield and the salvage yards, this gives a little bit of focus to feeling like a kid in a candy shop at the flea markets this summer!

2 comments:

Jess said...

Hmm, my guess is that if you didn't have a double door, you at least had the small glass windows around the door, like our house and the single door houses you took photos of (BTW, some of my favs in the neighborhood, especially that first blue one). Our neighbor down Cross St is dating a preservation specialist and he mentioned our door and it's frame are original. Let me know if you need company at Brimfield!

ThisIsPatPatrick said...

54” x 91” probable rough opening Jeff says. OK let's work it. Take an inch all around for opening/jamb clearance. Take another half to five eights off the sides for hinge and hardware clearance, about three eights at top. Now, two inches on the sides, one on top. What does that add up to?? Where is my calculator? Oh yeah, so 50.5+/- wide, call it 89 tall.

These two numbers are your guidelines for the size of paired doors you may consider. Regarding width, obviously two 25s. However, one reason they are called tombstones is you kill yourself squeezing through a 25" opening. Perhaps this opening had a more narrow passive door, and a larger active door. Say a 19-21 passive, and the active is whatever is left. Height wise, go with whatever you can get that fits the width. The top may have had a transom sash, or just a transom plate to fill the opening.
However!

If you want to use the existing opening, do not buy until you determine for sure the true measurements of the opening. A little hole here, a little hole there, and you have it. The surrounding homes are your best examples of what was probably there.

Let me know if I can help you and Jeff further.

Pat Patrick
OldTownRepair
Marblehead, MA
781-631-5145

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