Shiny new door

If you had said the words "door maintenance" to me three years ago, I would have thought you were talking about oiling the hinges and the lock to stop squeaks. Little did I know how spoiled I was with a painted metal door that faced north under a covered front porch.

Now we have a south-facing wood door that is stained and finished, and much to my surprise, it requires regular maintenance. Well, "requires" is a funny word, isn't it? It's not like the previous owner did any. When we moved in, you could tell the door needed some spiffing up, but it wasn't that bad. Two years later, however, it was that bad.

Here are pictures of it a week ago:





Pretty ratty, eh? Well, enough was enough. I didn't want the thing to get so worn that it would crack or get so bad we had to replace the whole door, so we pulled the trigger on refinishing it. I wish I could say I knew enough to do it myself, but I was afraid I would end up making it look even worse, so we had it professionally done. Now it looks like this:



What?! Why are you looking at me like that? Oh, woops... wrong picture. That was a door we saw on our trip to Italy years ago. Heh... honest mistake, really...

Ok, here is OUR door now:





Let that be a lesson to you... look for metal doors. Oh, wait... I mean... well, if you have a wood door, probably ought to take care of it. Don't be like the Bredenbergs...