Our Basement Door, a conflict between privacy and light

With the walls and trim finally done in here I was really excited to tackle the exterior basement door. I never would have picked a full glass door for here and I also never would have had it swing in from the left. But the door was brand new and free and natural light is always a good thing so, of course, I used it! The story is that it was an accidental order that I canceled that I got a full refund from Menards for. I went to pick up all of the new doors and windows for this house and guess who still got the door I was refunded for?

There were so many doors and windows on our trailer I didn’t even notice the extra door until we got home and unloaded everything.

I did feel a little guilty about it but it wasn’t our mistake, we weren’t the ones who loaded it and I just couldn’t force us to return a door that was a two hour drive when we already had so much crap to do.

So I just stashed it and moved on with my life.

The basement door that was here before was a solid steel door that I was going to keep but with this new door on hand I figured what the heck.

The majority of residential exterior doors swing in but looking back on it I totally should have installed this door to swing out. Its not a big landing so its awkward as heck shutting the door around you while not also simultaneously falling down the staircase.

At least if the door had swung in to the right falling down the stairs would have been less of an issue… but alas

You can’t access the hinges on doors that swing in which is why its the common way to install them on residential buildings to make harder to break into a home. Also, if you’re carrying a bunch of stuff its easier to push into a door than pull out.

On the other hand most commercial exterior doors all swing out in case of needing to evacuate a lot of people at one time from a building. And the carrying stuff logic applies here too because it seems more likely to be leaving a commercial building carrying stuff than when you’re entering.

Having a full glass door here turned out to be a double edged sword.

The natural light is wonderful for a stairwell that hasn’t seen the sunlight in 70 years.

Unfortunately though (and something no one ever would have guessed) the sun becomes a spotlight every afternoon for hours right down into the living space. Its so obnoxious in fact that we ended up hanging black out curtains at the base of the stairs!

But when they’re closed, especially if you’re coming down, they’re a horrible tripping hazard and its happened to me enough times now that I completely hate them. (Honestly, it feels like the kind of setup that should come with an alert button for Canadian seniors, it’s that precarious.)

So it was pretty obvious for me to just move the curtains up here.

The rod is plenty long enough so they slide entirely out of the way of the basement door when we don’t want them covering it.(And its not lost on me that covering it up will also help insulate in the winter.)

No more tripping hazard!

And some privacy now too as that full glass door is right on our driveway.

I taped off the glass and painted the door trim white while I was painting the walls, then I taped the trim and painted the door out with gloss black Rustoleum.

So, our basement door is finally finished after way too many years and I’m almost there with this stairwell too!