Saturday, September 1, 2007

Swing-out garage doors

Ok, it looks like I am gradually coming to peace with my crooked 45-degree-angled garage, so the old question is reappearing: what about garage doors? The dbl. door I have is neither pretty nor useful; as to the latter issue: the locking mechanism doesn't exist; it is heavy and there is no automatics, and the headroom is way too low because it functions as an overhead door.
I had the Guatemalans put in the drain - under Tony's supervision. And now it is time to think garage doors.

Earlier on I thought of the glass garage doors. But the problem of low head room is not solved.


I discussed with Tony the option of converting the opening into 2 single doors and having them open as swing-outs. And it sounded like that would work. And because the right-side garage corner is up for some serious wet-rot repair we might as well redefine the rough opening of the garage as appropriate to fit new doors.



I found some doors that I like - but they are in Seattle!!!! I was not able to find online any swing-out door manufacturer or distributor in the Northern California area.


Nevertheless, what I found was very nice: they produce doors with glass lites, but also some with metal. I am starting to see a trend here: using "raw" metals that are coordinated, e.g., ga;vanized chains downspouts, galvanized flashings, galvanized metal as lites - or replace galvanized with whatever your favorite metal is: copper, etc.