Barn Tuneup – Front Door

As the depths of winter set in out here in the mountains I decided to do something about the problem of early fading light, especially in the great room of the barn’s main floor.  On a typical January day I lose direct sunlight by about 3:30, and the darkness creeps in from that point on.

I decided that a big hurdle to solving the problem lay in the fact that the two oversized doors to the barn were visually solid, and that a solution might be to pierce them with large panes of glass.  Fortunately I happened to have just one such piece of glass leftover from the original construction a decade ago.  It is a piece of salvaged thermal glass  from an unremembered source but it was sized as though it was made for the task being contemplated and it seemed as though the project would be easy to undertake and complete.

So I did.

Since I was using the panel of glass essentially as a piece of sheathing the “framing” of the new window was a simple batten screwed to the door so that the panel would have  someplace to seat.  After the batten frame was in place I sawed out the opening for the window, lifted the new pane into its seat, and added some more temporary battens to the rear side to hold it in place until spring time when the warmer weather will allow me to caulk it in place permanently.

Until then I am enjoying both the doubling of the external light present in that work space, and celebrating the fact that this was one project that turned out to be as simple and quick as I had first imagined.  I would like to find another panel the exact same size for the other door, and will keep scouring the salvage yards until I do.

For now, I simply enjoy being able to work in the great room until almost five o’clock.