We've been putting off replacing the garage door for some time, and recently it has all-but failed entirely. Well, it wouldn't latch; it did continue to block the opening into which it was hung. The cold weather made it a perilous time, but today has been in the 40F's, so I figured "no time like the present."

And that's because 40F is warm these days, for those not in the cold parts of the world.

Peeking at the before snapshot, one can see that although the door is closed, the right side of it is not snug in the frame; it isn't latched (which you can't see, but it's still true), and a good strong wind will open it. One of the problems we've had with the door ever since we bought the house is that it seemed to be a flimsy weightless door. It was also poorly painted (and we never corrected that), and had been banged on far too often, so the skin was pulling from the wood inside. Also, the frame had been damaged, probably by someone hip-checking the door open while it was latched, causing the problem with the latch not catching. We've been putting off doing anything about it, since it mostly "worked," but it hasn't been lately, and today seemed nice outside.

After a quick trip to the barber's for a quick clipping of the shaggy top, I stopped by the local Home Depot to investigate a replacement door. I was about 80% sure that I would be leaving with a door; the 20% is why I didn't bother finding my DD214 (Home Depot gives 10% off to veterans every day).

I poked about a bit, and noticed none of the measurements matched what I'd found for my door. Of course, there's a little space around the doors, but this was off by what I was concerned was too much. Horizontally the dimensions were off by a half-inch from the recommended, but the framed doors were still a half-inch short of the opening I did have. Vertically, though, it seemed almost an inch and a half too much door. I had to get some help. I found a couple guys in orange aprons near by, and upon hearing I needed help, one came immediately to my aid.

I had taken some snaps from inside the garage before I left, and my foggy memory and the grainy cell-phone photo led me to believe there was an extra 2x4 above the door. Depot dude shrugged and said "sometimes they do that, frame the whole door with a 2x4 frame inside the structural frame, for maintenance later." My memory was wrong, and there was no extraneous 2x4, but my measurement was (as I'd told the guy) from the bottom of the door to the top of the frame (and showing the height of the door on the way past), not from the floor, as I couldn't get the tape measure to stay put that way. Based on the dimensions of the frames and doors, he suggested that I'd be best served with the 30x80 (than the 32x80), and if that was indeed an extra 2x4 at the top, perhaps I could cut it out of the way. I got the door and som recommended composite shims (he apologized for the apparent up-sell, but said the extra thirty cents would be well worth it...).

After a little monkeying about with the seats in the Jeep (it's so deceptively shaped), I managed to wedge the door in and trek home. I pulled the new door out and put it directly behind the old door (still in place), and it was a near perfect match! The extra height provided by the threshold made up the difference, and it turns out the old door was just a cheaper old door of the exact size I got.

I grabbed some tools and took to removing the old door and frame. A few taps with a hammer and tugs with a pliers and the old door was off the hinges and set aside. Most of the nails were easy to identify and pretty easy to remove. I did get fooled as the previous door was hung in part by removing the original hinge screws and replacing them with some monster-long ones. Also, there didn't seem to be an easy way to pull some of the finishing nails from the moulding, so I just pounded the old frame away. Before too long, the old frame was out and also set aside. I pulled out the finishing nails, and one ornery frame-holding guy that wouldn't come out before the frame. I cleaned the area from the spider egg balls and other debris that had gathered.

Hanging a door is a little bit of a frustrating thing. Well, mostly because I'm not a door-hanger by any stretch of training or occupation. For the unaware, doors are kind of suspended in the frames; by that I mean the frame around the door is suspended in the structural frame made for the opening. Using a frustrating cycle of shimming and screwing or nailing, and what seems to me to be way too much trial-and-error, you put a little more here, then some there, then some here, and so on, until the door frame is plumb and square and flush in all the right places. Oh, yeah, and the door needs to open and close freely within the frame. This bit took over an hour, the distinct time-consumer in the whole project.

After much retrial and little successes, the wife and I managed to get the door in well enough to work. It opens and closes cleanly, without rubbing on the frame. This was actually a hard part to get right. We'd shim or fasten a little bit, shut the door, find it was rubbing, and when pushing to open it, knock the whole thing out of whack.

It took a little while. We had a few moments of "what are you doing on the other side of the door when I'm trying to do something on this side that you don't know about?" It was a little frustrating, and I thank the wife for putting up with my grumbling and griping while it was going on. It got easier to see the end after a little while, and it stopped being the case that new shims and screws (I can't pound a long nail in straight no matter how hard I try) stopped torquing the door.

In the end, the new door is hung and works. It closes cleanly, latches every time, and even has a nice seal all the way around. It doesn't look different than the old door, which suits me just fine.