When is a door not a door? When it's ajar!

Well, I have had my eye on a couple of doors and I have been umm-ing and er-ing over which one I would finally choose. I did have my mind set on a glazed door and as I've put in a double-glazed window, I felt double glazing the door made sense. Without fart-arseing around trying to match a bare door to a double glazed panel, or vice versa, I decided on a ready made off the shelf pre-glazed baby. On the other hand, a basic timber door might look a little more 'shed-like' and will be a tad cheaper.

Today I looked at the two in my final shortlist at B&Q and tried to make a decision. Solid door or glazed door? Glazed door or solid door? In either case I would need to buy some door furniture so a set of hinges, a lock and catch and a set of handles were on the shopping list. Oh, and a tin of stain.

So what swung it? Four reasons. Firstly, the selection of glazed doors of the type I had considered were bloody heavy, at 44kg each. That is not only a heavy door for what is just a shed, but would need a potentially stronger frame and hinges than a lighter door choice. The unglazed door was a mere 25kg. Secondly, the glazed panel is larger than my window and wouldn't line up in an aesthetic manner. Thirdly, the glazed doors all seemed to have marks or dings on them from being shipped or handled - nothing major, but more work with the sandpaper and plastic wood. Fourthly, the basic solid door was £20 cheaper. I don't want to skimp on the project, but in the end the extra cost of a glazed door put me off. It may look a little 'plainer', but that's not a bad thing. I'm glad I put the window in now, though.

I've played with a couple of front doors, and I've rehung interior sapele or pine doors, but haven't 'built' an exterior door before. By that, I mean fitted hinges, chiselled out a rebate for the lock or trimmed it to fit an aperture. Fitting a complete framed double-glazed front door at a previous roost was simply a matter of beasting out the old door and frame, and then frame-fixing and sealing in the new one...a job for an afternoon.

Well, it wasn't a big deal. The lock came with paper templates and drilling details so half an hour with the drill, hammer and chisel saw that done, and test-fitting a pair of cheap handles (they need to come off again for staining) was the work of a couple of hours out in the garage tonight. I'm doing as much work 'off-site' as I can to minimise the fiddling about on-site.

The door (outside side). Tongue and groove pine, with an engineered frame and ledged and braced on the rear. I'm only using a cheap-ish Yale 3-lever lock rather than anything high security...we're in the middle of nowhere, so Fort Knox it doesn't need to be.

The handles are nothing fancy, just B&Q 'Value' at £6 a pair, but enough to be going on with. How well the brass flashing will stand up to the weather I wouldn't like to put money on, but they looked a little better than white plastic-coated or cast monkey-metal aluminium versions.

I still haven't made my mind up yet whether to hang the door so it opens inwards or opens outwards. Half of me says "it's a shed so open outwards" while the other half of me thinks it might be better from a prevailing wind point of view to have it open inwards. Visions of a Force 7 gale blowing through the Cloud Forest and ripping it out of my hands and off it's hinges spring to mind.

Opening out is going to be a little tricky right now as the level of the ground outside the door is a bit high, and may need scraping away, so I think what I might do is prepare hinge rebates both ways, so I can hang it opening inwards, and then change my mind later if an outward opener seems a better idea, later on.