December 2025 – Custom Exterior Door Installation

December 2025 – a gift to myself of a brand new front door. I am super relieved to report that my Dad finally had his shoulder surgery after it was delayed and postponed three times (twice because he chickened out) and he is feeling much better. Thank the universe as he basically broke his shoulder blade this last spring and could barely use his arm. He spent the night with me so I could take him in and bring him home even though he was adamant he could drive. (Yeah, they’re not going to let you drive after anesthesia… seriously.) He stayed with me another night and I woke up to the dog fed, the pellet stove filled up, dad playing my youtube list of music, the guest bedroom cleaned, bed made and him making coffee.

It was the first time I’ve had anyone here overnight since Lodi’s arrest and it was a new experience to have someone here that was polite and respectful of my home and me. Lodi was none of those things and was far worse in the last few months before his arrest. My lawyer had me make a list of the amount of furniture he destroyed here, times he broke things or punched the walls… It was staggering.

Lodi was adamant that I never gave him enough, never made him feel welcome enough, loved enough, or made him feel wanted enough, never gave him enough of my time or attention and somehow never gave him this home enough even though he owned this place just as much as I did.

The logic of a wife beater said that my hiding and never reporting how he hit me or destroyed things would eventually convince him that I was with him, that I loved him above all else. The more I gave him, the more I allowed him to abuse me the more it would somehow prove to him that I was all in.

I was about to type that nothing I ever did would have ever been enough and then it dawned on me. There actually was one thing I could have done that would finally have been enough for Lodi. I could have died.

He would have adored the life insurance policy, the house and all of my assets but, most of all, he would have loved being a widower. At his age now, with three ex-wives, he’s going to have a hard time convincing anyone with any intelligence that he isn’t the problem but if he were a grieving widower he would be set up life.

(If you look at it like that, he was right, I drew the line there, I wouldn’t die for him.)

Abusers use their partners until their partners have nothing left to give and finally snap. And then they blame their partners for the relationship not working out. When I first met him it wasn’t even two weeks after the girl he was with before me refused his proposal. He sold me on how crazy and abusive she and his two ex wives were.

A couple of weeks after getting out of jail for domestic assault for punching me and a DUI he was already posting his next girlfriend on social media. She is much younger and has small children which makes me feel like someone should warn her.

He took her on vacation and has hired a divorce attorney. I wonder if she knows he’s still married or that all of that was paid for by the $30,0000 he stole from me when he maxed out the HELOC loan against the house and cleared out our bank accounts.

He expects to get just about everything off of my property that isn’t nailed down and he expects me to eat that $30,000 as well. I actually laughed when his lawyer emailed the terms to me. I let his attorney know that he will be hearing from my attorney. Unfortunately I am on a waiting list because I cannot afford an attorney (fortunately with my income I qualify for one) and even if I could steel $30,000 to afford an attorney I would never do that to anyone.

In just a couple of weeks I will be getting assigned the same attorney that represented me for the restraining order. I am looking forward to Lodi’s attorney being educated by mine on how this is actually going to go. Lodi told his attorney absolutely nothing. Not about the assault, the DUI, or the restraining order or that I can move forward with a civil action against Lodi for domestic assault any time I feel like it.

So, last year I told you guys about Lodi hiring someone to install a new exterior door on the front of the house. I never worked with these people and only met them once. I trusted Lodi to get this right and let them know exactly what we were hiring them to do. Lodi reassured me he instructed them clearly that we were hiring them to order and install a new door the exact same size as the original front door that would also be painted black and outswinging.

That’s it. Simply remove said old door and put in the exact same size new door.

It should never have been more than a job of a couple of hours. I paid the $1,300 bill because I knew a pre-hung door at 32×73 would have to be custom made and thus very expensive. I figured the door itself cost that much so they would order it first and then charge us for the install once it arrived.

They did not order a custom door. They did not install an out swinging door. They didn’t even get a door that was black. And they didn’t even bother to get a door to the measurements that Lodi supposedly gave them.

I came home to the front of my house torn apart. They took out my exterior light fixture and cut right up to the switch box on the interior to make room for a door that was 4 inches wider than the original front door. They just bought a door off the rack and cut the bottom off of it. And obviously it wasn’t black… it was just basic primed and IT SWUNG IN.

If I had been there I would have stopped them before they started because OBVIOUSLY if they were making the doorway bigger than they were already not doing what we hired them to do. Lodi was there. He did not stop them.

There were only two reasons I let Lodi talk me into this in the first place. The original 100-year-old door was letting in a major draft so it did need to be replaced and there is an upward slant in my old floors so I could never put a rug in front of an in swinging door and my floors have really suffered. Lodi reassured me they would be coming back to paint the door, reinstall the light fixture and finish everything. After already spending $1,300 I resigned myself even though I didn’t even get an out swinging door.

That was in February 2025 and it has been like this ever since. Lodi told me at the time that they just ghosted him.

Yes, this was one of the many many many straws that broke the camel’s back for my opinion of my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s character. His association with this mess was unforgivable as he showed no remorse, gave no apologies and made no attempt to make it right.

He literally let them install the opposite of what we hired them to do… Honestly, as ridiculous as it sounds, this was done so completely wrong, that it almost feels like he did it intentionally.

I really tried to talk myself into just living with it because after Lodi clearing out our accounts I am seriously broke. You could see daylight (and feel a major draft) around the door so I couldn’t leave it like that going into winter. But I just couldn’t button up around that door that made me angry every day. If I finished it then I would be living with it forever so it would be making me angry forever.

It was in October when I ordered myself the perfect custom door. It was my gift to me for all the times he hit me. For all the times I survived. My symbol of throwing away all of the shit he left behind and getting far better in return. Instead of being reminded of his abuse every time I came home. It was time to be reminded of just how lucky I am.

It was (of course) just stupidly expensive as the door size I wanted was too crazy even for a custom steel door so I had to go with the even more expensive fiberglass. (To save a little I didn’t add a window which I do kind of miss but there are literally six windows within ten feet of this door…) I was so flipping excited when they dropped it off!

I called my dad screeching because I was told it would be darned near Christmas before it would arrive. The employee that helped me order it was just as excited as I was, “You’re not gonna believe it! Christmas came early! Your door is here!”

I had been fully resigned to be installing this door in some serious snow… Like literally right now when this post is coming out on December 28th but I got it in mid November! It all felt like a little thankful Xmas miracle. We installed the door five days before Thanksgiving and three days before our first snow storm. Dad and I installed the new door on northern Minnesota’s literal last day of fall with not a cloud in the sky and over 40 degree temps.

Dad’s shoulder was terrible then and I’m pretty little and this was a VERY heavy door, but we took our time, did it an inch at a time and got it done. It fit like a glove and only took about an hour.

We high fived, hugged and danced!

I spray foamed the top of the door and swapped the knobs from the other door. To make the day even better a friend came by and took that other door so I didn’t even have to worry about getting rid of it or ever having to look at it again.

I have a rug in front of my door for the first time ever!

The old plyboard that was across the top of the porch had sagged down over the years and had some pretty big holes in it. We laughed very hard when I went to open the door for the first time and it hit on the ceiling! Everything had been going SO WELL and now instead of swinging in and hitting the floor of course it now swings out and hits the ceiling?! That old plyboard needed to go anyway so I just ripped it out. That will be a project for me to fix next summer.

I went from my front door being a sight that made me upset every day to it now being something that makes my little heart really happy. Getting this done means that everything can get better. I can fix it now and actually move forward.

It is such a relief!

Guys, I haven’t put a whole lot of thought into exterior doors (which is probably normal for most people) but the difference between this door and the steel door is enormous. It is more solid and sturdy than any exterior door I’ve come across. When it closes it SNAPS shut like my house is a vault.

Fiberglass exterior doors are quite new (as far as I know anyway) and quite a bit more expensive then steel doors. But my gosh, the difference is huge.

I didn’t really decorate this year but I did get a wreath and I totally love it. You can see at the bottom on the front where the old door was and just how much bigger to the right this new door is. I saw no point in going back to a 32 inch wide door when the opening was already 36 inches wide.

But it does mean my front door is even MORE off center than it was before… sighs.

I had always planned to take out the front awning and replace it with a much wider one anyway and its enough of a step up into the house that I can just put a new deck right over the cement step. When I get this all fixed up this summer I’m definitely going to get some pricing because I have a porch swing my grandparents made that has been waiting over thirty years for this.

If I made it 16×4 feet that is only two pieces of plywood and two pieces of steel then I would only need maybe eight 6x6s and around 25 deck boards… that’s not much! And I could save a lot if I use regular timber and not composite materials but dang… it sure would be nice if I do this to never have to do it again.