Rotten to the Core and the Endless Pit

Finally changed the entry door to the laundry room.  Fourth door change on this house.

When we bought this house, we knew that the door jamb for the laundry room was rotting and would need replacing.  I wasn't excited about doing the job, especially since any prehung door would suffer the same fate.  However, since we had the roof redone, and we let the roofers use that door to access a bathroom, the rate of decay significantly increased.  It got to the point where enough of the jamb disintegrated to reveal the jackstuds of the door frame.  I didn't want the actual framing stuff to be exposed to the elements, so it was time to get a move on.





Oh yeah, the door was ugly too.



Compounding the problem was the original door was a custom height.  Standard doors are 80 inches tall.  Our door was 75.  That's another reason not to go with a prehung door.

A scouting mission to Home Depot proved fruitful as I located a custom jamb kit made out of pvc instead of wood.  It has a no-rot guarantee.  We also found a solid wood ventlite door slab.  This would let us keep a window open without the neighbors being able to see us pee.

So between Mason's meals, I got to work.  Removing the old stuff was easy.  Putting in the new stuff was a little more work, mostly because I had to trim stuff.  While they were both considered 36 inch doors, the old one measured 35.5.  Got the door hung before the sun went down (had to wait a few hours for Mason to sleep before Wendy could help me carry the new door.)

The next day was spent finishing the trim.  This took longer than expected since it was raining in the morning.  I couldn't caulk and paint until the exterior was dry.





What about Mason?  He wasn't eating well for a few days, so the doctor had us supplement his diet with some formula.  It wasn't ideal, but we really needed him to get food in his belly.  So Wendy breastfeeds him for a while, then I take over with a bottle.  Now he's gaining weight really fast and eating a ton, but his poop smells bad.  He also farts a lot.