Welcome to Our Home - Front Door

When we were building our home, one thing that I kept telling Andrew was "MORE WINDOWS". I love natural light and our home could practically be a green house with all of the windows that were installed (my indoor plants are happy about this). One way to add even more natural light, was to add a double front door with glass. However, we were on a tight budget while building and arched, double doors with windows are very pricy. In order to make this possible, we ordered an unfinished door and completed the finishing touches ourselves.

Above is a picture of the door right after delivery and installation. As you can see it arrived with raw wood and no hardware. We used the knotty alder option instead of mahogany, to save some money. Our very first step was sanding the door. 100 girt and 150 grit sand paper were used to ensure there were no rough spots anywhere on the doors. After sanding, we carefully removed all of the dust from the doors using a vacuum cleaner and microfiber towels. We didn't want any dust left over from sanding before staining/sealing as it can get trapped and cause rough spots. Next, came staining. We used Minwax Wood Finish Oil-Based Espresso Stain to stain the doors.

This was already a darker color, so only one coat was needed. After it was stained and dried, we sealed the doors with Minwax Helmsman Clear Satin Oil Based Varnish. This varnish forms a protective barrier against rain, moisture, and UV blockers to reduce the sun's fading effects. We chose the satin finish so that it wasn't too glossy or reflective. The varnish was applied using foam paint brushes. This had to be done carefully as drips easily form on the vertical surface. Going slow and steady with a thin layer was the best option. Two coats where applied to the finished product.

The last step was clean up. Even though we had carefully taped around the windows during this process, there was inevitably some liquid that was trapped under the tape. This was easily taken off using a sharp razor blade flush agains the glass to peel off any excess stain/varnish. We purchased hardware from Lowes to add the final touch to our front doors. Voila! The doors turned out exactly as we had hoped. This was an easy way to save money and only took two weekends to complete.