Advice on a replacement back door?

[Vala]

As many of you know, for some reason my house has a modern back door. One of those junk plastic doors with the 9 panes grille (which looks like crap on a house with 1 over 1 windows) and I really hate this door and can't wait for the day to replace it.

The trouble is finding a door that fits 82" by 33 3/4" (plus I dont know the width because they put "new" wood into the jamb to fit the smaller modern door). I did pick up a different Victorian door that actually fits the dimensions of the modern door. The new door is 79 1/4" tall by 32" wide and 1 1/4" thick. The modern door in there now, is the same dimensions except for being 79 1/2" tall.

The thing is the door I got has an oval window in it, and my house doesn't have any oval or round windows (nor do I want to add one) so then I'd have the dilemma of having something that is mismatched for my house's style. However it is the back door, so I don't know what you guys think, if that matters or not since it would be the back door.

The other thing is, with this door I'd have to keep that modern wood they put into the jamb for the smaller door size, and the trouble with that besides, the fact it looks ugly, is that the new wood is of poor quality and is painted, therefore stripping wood originally painted as many of you know is extremely difficult, and this cheap wood doesn't take stain well either.

I've been debating this for some time but can't think of anything.

I'd really love to get a custom milled door to fit my exact dimensions but I don't know how many more years until that happens and in the meantime I'm tired of using a modern junk door.

Attached is a photo of the modern junk wood shim job I'm talking about.

Photo1701.jpg (561.86 KiB) Viewed 775 times

So should I put the new door and just live with the fact its mismatched? Tear out the modern shim job and put new unpainted wood for the new shims?

Or just do nothing and wait until I can get a proper custom one.
Awaiting everyone's thoughts on this,
Thanks,

[Mick_VT]

I have the feeling from the way you describe this that you will not be happy with the new old door if you put it in. I think maybe using it as a trade at an architectural salvage place for a better fit in dimensions and aesthetics might be a better bet.

[Vala]

Yea I agree. But I just can't find anything that large. We have unusually tall and wide doors compared to what they have around here. I guess since this house was built by the family that owned the lumber company so they made everything to their exact liking instead of buying the common sizes. Same story with our windows.

edit: that also reminds me of my post on WG a year or two ago wondering why my window/door casings and baseboards on the interior were rather plain. I think the consensus there was the same thing, becuase they owned the lumber company they put something that was largely unavailable at the time just to be different. Because I found my baseboards and door/window casings in a 20s trim catalog. I was wondering if they had retrimmed the house in the 20s but then I discovered these baseboards and door/window casings were original. I determined that in the case of the baseboards because the plaster only went down as far as the baseboards, below them it was just unplastered lath.

[phil]

try sourcing the door you like , if it comes with the jam great, use it. If not , it isn't too hard to make the door jam and doing so might help you resize the hole to suit your new door.
If you don't want to remove the "junk wood" sometimes an option is to cover it , you can cover most things with a thick veneer that you can cut on a table saw or bandsaw. a 1/8th thick veneer can be applied to almost anythign with a little PL glue a few nails to hold it tight while it dries , no one is the wiser that it really isn't full thickness.

[Mick_VT]

You may need to cast your net a little wider with the salvage places - could be a fun road trip

[Vala]

Lol Mick I was just gonna say, if anyone knows some good salvage places, I'd be happy to go on a road trip for a door (if they have what I want).

[Nicholas]

I doubt you want to visit in the Tampa area...of course, we are coming up on the time of year where the snowbirds visit, so just in case, here is the door page at Schiller Salvage, the owner does haggle with cash..:

http://schillersalvage.com/?page_id=6916

[Mick_VT]

Keep an eye on ebay, some of the salvage places post doors on there and will ship freight.

Some will even restore or modify doors for you like this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/33-x83-Antique- ... 3d03eb1eea

with a little bit of exploratory detective work you should be able to find out the size and what is left of the original opening. I doubt that when the new door was fitted they removed too much of the existing frame but its always possible. My guess is what is white in your pic (including the half round) is all new and installed onto the old jamb

[Mick_VT]

This might suit your place well http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Victori ... 25ad39e5f0

[dpkmpy8]

Don't know what part of So-Ill you are in, but Bloomington and Champaign both have Salvage warehouses you could check out. They are both non-for-profits I believe, but both are very heavily involved in their respective communities. oldhousesociety.org in Bloomington and pacacc.org in Champaign. There is also an antique place in Payson IL, over by Quincy that usually has architectural salvage and is active on ebay. There is another in Quincy somewhere that I have yet to visit, cant remember the name, but they are on ebay alot too. Happy Hunting!