My brother-in-law and sister-in-law renovated their house last year.  As part of that renovation they replaced their front door, and we have been storing this door against the back wall of the shop ever since …

We are finally at the point of closing up the earthship, and we figured this door would work in our west entrance for the time being.  The door is a little beat up, but we are planning to bring construction materials for finishing the interior of the building in through it.  So, we figure if it gets a little more banged up … c’est la vie!  Now, the only problem is its just a bit too wide …

We built our rough openings to fit 3′ wide x 6′-8″ high doors … a standard size.  This door is closer to 5′ wide with the side panels.  So, we finally took this door into the shop …

… and now it fits!  I dismantled the frame, cut it down to size and then reassembled the door in the smaller frame.  I am pleased with the result; a half day of labour and some new wood screws!  We still have to track down a keyed door handle.  Thanks David and Melanie!

We’ve put poly over the two remaining door openings and the windows above them until we track down two more doors and windows.  The building is now essentially closed in; we forgot about a fairly large opening above the door in the south face, we only have plywood over the skylight openings and we have not insulated the south face of the building.  Despite all of these missing details the inside of the building is maintaining a warmer temperature than outside.  I’ve noticed that with overcast weather over the last two days the inside temperature is starting to match the outside temperature during the day.

We’ve finished up a few odd jobs over the last couple of days while we think about how to tackle the inside of the building.