Monday, 13 March 2017

Week 59-62 - External and By-fold Doors

Definition of a door: "A hinged, sliding, or revolving barrier at the entrance to a building.”

Unfortunately our old external workshop doors did none of these things well, or in fact, at all. It was therefore time to make some new ones. I am extremely glad to say that these are the last external doors I need to make for the building; however I have left the most complex to last.

These are our old doors that I am reliably informed have served a faithful 20 years and worked well. However by the time we inherited them they were feeling somewhat sorry for themselves. Then they went through a flood, had their bottoms chopped off for the pouring of the new concrete floor and have been boarded up and barely opened (even with the use of a drill and crowbar) ever since.

We have retired them to the great door showroom in the sky and replaced them with a shiny new set of by fold doors

OK, first of all I will address our colour decisions! – I do appreciate that they may not be to everyone’s taste, but I love them, and potentially more importantly, so does Sophie. The colour impact is exactly what I wanted and coupled with the gull wing shaped glazing they fit exactly the design brief I was aiming for. I do spend most of my time designing furniture for other people, unfortunately painting doors in bright multi colours is not something most of them will let you do (wimps!) , so you have to take your opportunities while you can.

Its also important to remember that this is a commercial building that we want people to visit and come inside for a look. So if they grab your attention as you walk past, whether you like them or not, they have done their job well.


At the same time I have also made the single door to the 2nd downstairs workshop and the main customer entrance door to the building. This means we officially have a working and locking door everywhere we should – no more padlocks and unscrewing temporary boarding to get in and out, yay!



The main customer entrance is in the same colours as the big front doors to my workshop and steals the same glazing design. The 2nd workshop door next door is deliberately subdued as it is not a door you (as a member of the public at least) as supposed to go through – take the hint! We have also fitted the last window at the same time to the 2nd workshop.


 Door frames glued up (by which I mean the frames of the doors, not the door frame itself - if you see what I mean!)


The voids in the frames are then filled with high performance insulation and the panel is glued on both sides. These doors account for basically one full wall of the workshop so they need to be as insulated as possible.


We made plenty of colour samples before we actually painted the doors. These is a important task - but that doesn't stop it being annoyingly time consuming and a surprisingly costly task.


Sophie spending what used to be known as a 'day off' getting the first colour coat on the doors


Old doors removed we need to make the new reveal for new doors



New doors lintel going in. This is what the doors header is attached to, so takes the weight. To make things more complicated (as usual) this lintel also needs have channels in it so water waste and supply pipes and electric cables can get from one side of the door to the other.


Finished lintel with soil pipe and water supply pipes running through it


Doors stacked up in the open possition at one side

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