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Fixing the Garage Door |
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My garage door needed help. It
was 100 years old, falling off the rails, and had been battered by a
collapsing building. It's a beautiful door. A lot of homeowners in my neighborhood
have replaced their doors with modern ones. This is destroying the historic beauty
of the area and makes me sad. |
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Handy as I am, I wasn't up to the task. |
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So I hired Nate Ross to help. Nate did the hard work and came up with the plan. I did a lot of the grunt work. |
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First, we dug out the garage. Every time the vacant lot next door floods, a couple inches of mud run down into the garage. It took hours to shovel out. |
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While Sky built a retaining wall to keep the dirt at bay, Nate and I took the door off of its hinges.
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It had a lot of "non standard" parts on it that Nate couldn't identify. |
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| Nate builta custom table to hold the doors -- it took him, literally, eight minutes and was plum to the un-level floor. Amazing. |
It was my job to fix the door when it was on the table. I removed the broken windows, took off the hardware, and cut away the rotted part. |
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Nate
had said that a big piece of the door had rotted from water damage over
the years and needed to be replaced. I suggested we go to the lumber
yard. Nate looked at me strangely and said "You can't get a 100 year
old piece of wood at a lumber yard." So Nate returned the next day with
a 100 year old door panel that we cut to fit the rotted part. He built
custom flanges and we attached it to the door. Previously the door had
been a sort of "barn door" variety, where a top half opened and then a
bottom ... quarter opened. I could see no advantage to this, apart from
allowing some air to flow in and keeping guinea pigs from escaping. So
we bolted the two halves together and used the extra harware to replace
some missing hardware. We disassembled the rail system that the door
rides along, greased it, and restored everything. Nate wanted to paint
it, but I liked the chipped original look. Who can say. I love that he
put so much time and effort into preserving this piece of history and
treated it with such care, respect, and even love. Some crafts person
made this door as a functional piece of art and Nate helped keep it
alive and the house maintains its historic integrity. |
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The finished product closes flat and locks. Joy! Note my way-cool motion sensor light too! |
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