Replacing a Door Lite Window Frame

Hello there! I know you were expecting the laundry room makeover today. Some of us needed a little extra time so look out for that post next Tuesday! Today’s DIY maybe doesn’t constitute as fun but definitely made a huge difference in updating the looks of things around here. *Schlage graciously provided the hardware through out our house making this makeover that much better. Thank you for supporting the brands that support House Homemade.

When we moved in our back door had the plastic grate that made it look like the window had 15 separate panels of glass. That’s 15 tiny squares to clean. Um NO. It wasn’t bad before but it
wasn’t pretty either. I’m the worst and didn’t get a good before picture
but here it is in the MLS photos from the back porch.

You can see it here in the corner at 3 weeks in..

It also made a little cameo in this tree picture. I really
stood out as being less modern than I wanted when we got our new
windows in the fall. They don’t have any grates and made the door look
really shabby.

When I first got the idea to remove the grates I did a little investigating on my own and then turned to YouTube. I found this video which was super helpful and linked to an online store called All About Doors and Windows. I ordered the 22×64 door lite. You also need to specify thickness of the glass. Ours is 1/2 inch.

We waited for a nice day and took the door down.

Once it was on the saw horses, we picked out the little plugs that hid the screws, unscrewed and removed the plastic frame. Note: the glass floats in between this plastic on the frame. Be careful. You can see we put sheets on the saw horses as a little extra padding.

Once the grates were off, there was some paint and gunk to get rid of. We scraped it off with a utility knife.

We flipped it over to take the frame off and clean up the other side.

We carefully removed the glass and propped it on its side where it could be out of the way while the door got a fresh coat of paint.

I gave the exterior side a coat of Sherwin Williams “Urbane Bronze” (the color I painted the garage door…but haven’t showed you yet) and the interior a coat of “Nightowl” which was left over from the mudroom wall.

This really was the part that took the longest. We had to prime and paint both sides and the plastic frames with dry time in between. We used this time to add a new door sweep to help with drafts.

During dry times, I gave the door hinges a fresh coat of matte black to match the Schlage hardware we’ve put throughout the house.

After the door was dry it was time to reinstall the glass.There’s the side of the frame with screw holes and the side of the frame that’s solid. We laid the solid side down (it goes on the exterior side of the door)

Lined up the exterior part of the door and laid it on top.

You don’t have to glue the glass in or anything, the frame holds it but we added this bead of silicone to either side to make it a little more energy efficient.

Next you put the top frame on and begin to tighten the screws and the frame. Joel was a little nervous to keep tightening and possibly stripping the plastic trim. We actually even thought the frame was the wrong size because it wasn’t coming together like we thought. I emailed the customer service people at All About Doors and they let me know to continue tightening with a handheld screw driver (not a drill) and that it would cinch in and be just fine. It worked!

I attached the matte black latitude lever and century trim by schlage (the pieces are interchangeable so both names are important to know.) And the corresponding deadbolt. Remember, I posted a tutorial on installing door hardware, here.