Saturday 28 September 2013

Shut the front door



So here's the door from the outside looking in. The glass has enough of a texture that it allows in plenty of light, but you can't make out what's going when you peer through it. Nice to have the 'furniture' where we wanted it, though I regret not getting the door knocker that came with. The door bell is stuck on with double sided sellotape but hey ho, it seems to work OK. The door is sealed in properly so there's no draft.

UPDATE: Our heating bill dropped by about £30-£40 a month since getting this door installed! Also, in previous winters we'd need a little fan heater to warm up the room quicker as the radiators didn't seem up to the job - this year, we've retired the fan heater to the attic. 

Monday 2 September 2013

New front door

Earlier this year I blogged about getting a quote from the Anglian Home door company. Long story short - it was the sort of sales technique that makes my skin crawl. The opposite of that experience was dealing with the (aptly named) Composite Door Shop. You could fill out a virtual door designer, stating all your preferences for a bespoke service, and even with the addition of a letterbox (that Anglian couldn't manage) and swapping the location of the handle around (again, Anglian weren't sure about doing this...) we got the door exactly as we wanted it, for £1,000. Our builders installed it in less than a day.

I'll update with a picture of the outside of it when I remember to take a snap (FYI It's navy blue with silver 'furniture'). Here are a couple of shots taken early evening, showing how much light comes through now. The glass is opaque enough to let the light in, but not enough to see any detail on the other side. When I have my face up to the glass I can just make out colours but no shapes.

The door itself has multi-point locking mechanism, and if looked after should last for more than 30 years.