"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
11/22/2019 at 13:42 • Filed to: None
3
10|
"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
11/22/2019 at 13:42 • Filed to: None | 3
| 10 |
After 11 years in our house, we finally got around to replacing the drafty, cheap metal entry door. I mean, sure, I could have made it better (and I did, some) but we also wanted a bit more glass, both for light and to be able to see out. After much hemming and hawing, we picked a specific door, AND made the giant leap to change how the door swings.
Our house isn’t big, at least, not in any one floor’s footprint. So when you came in the entry door, you looked straight ahead at another door just 4' in front of you. That used to be a “coat closet” but it’s only 12" deep, so hooks only. I made that into a pantry years ago. To get to the room where we keep all our shoes, jackets, gloves, hats, etc. you had to either a) close the door part way and step awkwardly around it or b) open it 180 degrees and go past it, by the main staircase, and into the mudroom.
NO MORE!!
The door now swings open in the direction you WANT to go, so you walk in and go directly to the mudroom (behind me in the pic above), even without opening the door past 90. AND, because the door isn’t centered on the hallway there, it also now opens toward half the hallway and a set of stairs, rather than half a hallway and the door to the former coat closet-now pantry.
It also puts the handle on the “near” side as you walk up the angled walkway, and in hindsight, we should have made the change YEARS ago, but who knew? It’s more intuitive to us already, and I think within 48 hours, the muscle memory of the way it was, is totally erased by having it finally be RIGHT.
However, one member of the family can’t quite get it, and lines up to the wrong side of the door, every time.
Why is no one opening the door.
Come on, daddy. Open.
She was so flustered when I opened it the other way, she jumped all the way off the brick steps and went around behind me, to very tenuously come in the other way. Oh, poor thing. She’ll figure it out soon enough. But she’s 10, and we’ll cut her some slack!
Meanwhile, we have to decide what color to paint this door. Don’t hold your breath.
Oh, and the coolest thing how on the storm door, when you want to slide the top glass down, the screen unrolls from the top of the door. And when you slide it back up, the screen just retracts back. Switching the storm door from screen to glass used to be a Big Decision every year, “oh are we done having fresh air through the front door... is it warm enough to put the screen in yet...” Now you can just go from glass to screen instantly, as often as you want. What a world we live in.
E90M3
> functionoverfashion
11/22/2019 at 13:56 |
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Oodles of doodles.
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functionoverfashion
> E90M3
11/22/2019 at 14:00 |
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When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles
and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles...
...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle
bottle paddle battle.
shop-teacher
> functionoverfashion
11/22/2019 at 14:02 |
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What monster put the old door swinging the other way?!?!?!?!
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functionoverfashion
> shop-teacher
11/22/2019 at 14:16 |
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After much deliberation before making a change like that, we came to the conclusion that, indeed, only a monster would have put it the other way, and how did we ever live with it like that.
However, now the light switches are behind the door. I said, we’ll give it a month or two (we’re in the darkest time of year, so that’s good) and if it drives us crazy, I’ll fix it. That will involve cutting holes in two walls, pulling wires down into the basement, and extending them over and up into the wall on the opposite side, then patching walls and probably re-painting the whole section on either side of the door. So yeah, kind of a big project all told. Knowing how we like things to be “right, once” I’ll be doing that soon.
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shop-teacher
> functionoverfashion
11/22/2019 at 14:18 |
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I would go ahead and move the switches. It’s a pain, but it’ll be worth it.
Fuckkinja
> functionoverfashion
11/22/2019 at 14:41 |
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Install a motion sensing switch for a cheap fix. We use those in the barn and the basement.
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functionoverfashion
> Fuckkinja
11/22/2019 at 14:47 |
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I have one in our laundry room in the basement, it’s brilliant. But the switches there also control the outside lights, so it’s more than just the immediate hall you come into. Still, that’s a good idea and maybe it would be enough to have the hall light on a motion sensor, that way it comes on when you open the door, and you can close it and reach over to turn on the outside lights if you want.
One of the outside lights is on a motion sensor already, but if you leave it on all the time, I find it doesn’t work about 75% of the time. It seems like turning it on in the daytime means it won’t work in the dark, like it needs to be reset for the light conditions or something. WTF. I’d love to leave it on all the time, because when you turn it on at night, it does its job perfectly well.
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Fuckkinja
> functionoverfashion
11/22/2019 at 15:27 |
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Get motion switch with the lip on the bottom of the sensor. The lip helps shield t he dogs from triggering the light. We have big dogs also.
I had this exact situation with a customer this morning. Strange world.
facw
> functionoverfashion
11/24/2019 at 01:40 |
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Smart lights/switches, and just use timers/voice control
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functionoverfashion
> facw
11/25/2019 at 10:19 |
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I’m intrigued by this stuff, but have very little of it in my house. Maybe this is a way to try it out...