Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Tiny house Door Hunt- Buy or Build?

The front door is a major element of your house. You'll want to spend some time getting the right door to make your house really shine. Where should you look? Can you make it?

Ask any door "specialist" at a big box store for a 24 inch exterior door and watch them laugh and/or roll their eyes at you.

You can have them punch it into their machine for a custom door and you might get a $750 quote like I did...that's when I laughed and rolled my eyes at them. 

The next logical place to look is a salvage store like Habitat for Humanity's Re-store or others like it. What I look at these places it's hit and miss. If you find a solid wood door that's the right size or can be cut down that's like finding two $100 dollar bills on the ground so it's worth it. At the places I went to there are typically two to five doors that could work and then it's a matter of taste as to if you like what you find. I've found a few solid wood interior doors that seem like they would work just as well. They are a bit thinner but not by much.

As with all things you might just find it on the side of the road or in a friend's garage so keep your eyes peeled. I've seen a few that have made me stop to check but no gold nuggets so far.

This brings me to the other option....building a door? To me it seemed at the same time to be complex and mysterious and also at the same time simple considering I'm building the rest of the house myself. The Tumbleweed Plans I bought have a door plan in them and after a while of looking at too many crappy fiberboard doors we decided to go ahead and build.

That means that for now I'll be getting by with a piece of plywood or something but in the end I'll have a much better story when somebody asks where I got my door than "Lowes on sale for $249". When in doubt I go for whatever will give me the best story.

I really would love to do a speak easy peek-a-boo hatch in my door like this one.



3 comments:

  1. I didn't realize that a large part of the property was the presentation of the door. I just have a plain white door right now, but I guess that is boring and doesn't stand out at all. I read another post on another blog saying yellow was a good bright happy way to paint a door, but I think that may be way too drastic. I was thinking navy blue or a green, but we'll see.
    Tom Stubbs | http://greghoneymichael.com/buying/

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    1. I get a lot of attention just for the door. It's something that everybody sees on your house no matter what so pay it the time it deserves and it'll re-pay you every time somebody rings or knocks. I went with natural wood and I love the look, plus as it gets nicked and dented and what-not I can just re-oil it and it'll because a rustic look instead of having to re-paint all the time.

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