We are making progress at the coastal cottage despite the 5 hours commute. Even though we’ve been slightly tweaking a couple of things on the floor plan in the main areas, we have been moving full steam ahead in the back part of the cottage and for the first time we are finally able to get a glimpse of what the end result is going to look like.
Our first goal was to beat the cold, wintery weather by wrapping up exterior work like windows, doors and siding so that’s where we began. We knew we were getting water around the door which was one of the reasons why we wanted to move it but our new floor plan also required no longer having the back door on the side of the house.
In case you missed it, you check out the before and after floor plans that we’ve been working off of and get an idea of where we are starting on this small but mighty project.
It started with finding a door. I really wanted something with glass to let in natural light through the back of the house. Since this isn’t a full time residence, B was worried about security and preferred a door with no window. We compromised on a craftsman style door with glass just at the top. For all the details, see the Resource section below.
In my honest opinion, the door is OK. It’s not a great door but with some paint and beautiful hardware, it looks much nicer than it maybe is. While we didn’t want junk, given what we paid for the cottage and the home values in the neighborhood, it didn’t make sense to spend even $2000 on a solid wood door. We want this project to make financial sense even though it’s for our personal use and not for resale at this point. For all the details and links to what we used, see the resource section below.
For the windows, we used what was left in the house when we bought it. The casement window in the bathroom was already installed but to make it fit for our new floor plan, we took the time and effort to slide the window over about 9 inches so it makes sense with everything else.
After considering buying a window for the bedroom, we decided to use the one that was left in the house still in it’s packaging. Turns out, it’s a pretty decent aluminum window by Pella so we are thinking of using the same windows in the rest of the cottage as the project moves forward.
As would be expected for an old house, we did uncover some unexpected issues when removing the old door. The water we knew had been getting in must have been bad for some time because we uncovered a lot of rot. Luckily we were able to replace the damaged areas fairly quickly and without a lot of added expense.
Using the siding we had, we were able to patch the old doorway good enough to get us through the winter until we are ready next year to redo all the siding. More on that to come.
The back of the cottage now looks more like a house and not one large blank wall. It also now gives you the idea of what’s to come inside and for the first time, we were able to start seeing our vision come to life and brings us to the next step; framing the interior.
Resources:
32” Craftsman Style Exterior Door
Paint Color: Benjamin Moore Hale Navy
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