Improving Our Front Entrance
This year’s project was to update our front entrance. This is the original door and porch. 
To that end, we collected lots of brochures of doors and did some on-line investigation of the best product to use. The question was – fiberglass or steel? We had decided on fiberglass but then were advised by a retailer that steel was better for our climate. So steel it was to be.
Then to chose the design of the door and the glass. We had decided quite early in the process that we wanted glass to increase the light in that hallway. So glass was a definite. But, not too much glass as it does get cold up here in Canada. Eventually we settled on a medium sized oval. Now to select the design of the glass. We wanted the light but also wanted privacy as our bed is in full view from the door. This narrowed the options and made the selection process easier. Finally, the appearance of the door was chosen.
Now just colour remained! Whew, lots of choices. Again, we eliminated ones that were entirely inappropriate quite quickly. Finally we were down to our four favourites. It was time to call in the expert! A neighbour is an artist and has given us excellent advice regarding paint colours in our house. She was thrilled to help and agreed on the four possibles but quickly narrowed in on the best choice.
With all that done, we just had to wait for the door to come in and for the installer to schedule us. Maybe we should take a look at the rest of the entry. The patio slab walkway was looking very mossy and the porch could be cleaner. With a beautiful new door coming, we couldn’t leave the rest looking shabby.
A new coat or two of HardRock freshened up the porch and gave it a colour that would look great with the door. Then Murray tackled the patio stones. After much searching, we found the right replacements and also a lovely natural stone step to replace the old concrete one. The old stones were removed, the hole dug and squared, 3 to 4 inches of fines with mason sand on top was added and, finally, all compacted. Then the new patio stones were installed. Polysand was swept and watered into all the joints.The biggest job was to move the 800 pound stone step from the trailer into it’s place. Murray used eight neighbours ( the oldest over 90 ), pry bars and pipes as rollers to do that job. He figured that if the Egyptians could built the pyramids using levers and rollers, he could move one large stone the same way. All went smoothly but with no photos of the process.
Today, the final piece arrived – the beautiful new door! 
