Refinished the front door

Not very exciting except that now I don't have to look at the deteriorated front door any longer. The house we moved into about three years ago has a nice wood door with leaded glass. But it looked like it had never been cared for in any way. And it's fairly exposed. No significant overhang to protect it and faces mostly west so it catches a lot of weather straight on.

I didn't think to get any good "before" pictures. The top shot is, obviously, the door in progress but well along. My neighbor Paul helped me with this project. We got it down and sanded it down to bare wood. Between three and four hours with an assortment of power sanders, sanding sponges, and plain ol' hand sanding. There was some water damage along the bottom panel and the molding around the raised panels was a real mess.

We stained it, each working down one side, with a walnut stain that matched the original color fairly well and looks good with the brick. Then I put on two coats of satin polyurethane.

With drying time for everything that took most of the day on Good Friday and all of Saturday. It really could have used a third coat of polyurethane but we had company coming over on Easter Sunday and it didn't seem like a good idea to leave up the OSB board that was screwed in place in the doorway. :)

The end result isn't perfect but it is so much better than it was.