Earnest Door Appreciation Society — a catalog of literal back doors
Door of the day
The Savannah Storm
Storm door · 1947 · Savannah, Georgia (Greek Revival townhouse)
The Savannah Storm is a three-season storm door — a single frame with three swappable inserts, allowing the same door to serve as winter glass, summer screen, or louvered hurricane shutter. The Society acquired it from a Greek Revival townhouse near Forsyth Park. The owner had all three inserts, in original storage racks in the carriage house. It is the only complete three-insert set the Society has cataloged.
Read the full entry →About the Society
The Earnest Door Appreciation Society catalogs, restores, and writes about literal back doors — the kind you walk through every day. Architectural back doors, screen doors, French doors, sliding doors, Dutch doors, pocket doors, barn doors. We do not have opinions about other meanings of the phrase. We have opinions about hinges, mesh, weatherstripping, and the proper way to square a rough opening.
The Collection currently includes 18 doors. The Practical Guides currently number 5, with more on the way.
More about the Society →Recently added to the Collection
- service · 1965The Anchorage VestibuleAnchorage, Alaska (railroad worker housing)
- service · 1908The Brooklyn FireBrooklyn, New York (former NYFD ladder company building)
- barn · 1887The Burlington BarnBurlington, Vermont (working dairy, decommissioned 2018)
- panel · 1851The Charleston PiazzaCharleston, South Carolina (single house, Battery)
- saloon · 1894The Cheyenne SaloonCheyenne, Wyoming (Plains Hotel bar, salvaged 1968)
- service · 1923The Coaldale DispatcherCoaldale, Alberta (salvaged from CPR maintenance shed)
From the Photo Archive
Practical Guides
The Society publishes home-improvement guides written by people who actually care about doors. Real measurements, real techniques, no affiliate links.
- intermediate · 60-90 minutes (before you start the door install)How to square a door frame's rough opening — the step nobody photographsA step-by-step guide to checking and correcting a rough opening before you install any door, with diagonal-measurement and king-stud-correction techniques.
- intermediate · 6-10 hours (one weekend)How to install French doors — a real walkthroughA patient, practical guide to installing a pair of pre-hung French doors in a rough opening, including the squaring step every YouTube tutorial skips.
- beginner · 45 minutesHow to replace screen door mesh — patient, frame-friendly, $20A complete guide to re-screening an aluminum or wood screen door, including the spline-roller technique that doesn't gouge the frame.
- intermediate · 90 minutesSliding door roller repair — fix the bind in 90 minutesA complete guide to diagnosing and replacing the rollers on a sliding patio door without removing the frame.
- beginner · 2 hoursHow to weatherstrip a back door — the four kinds and where each goesA complete weatherstripping guide for exterior back doors: V-strip on the stops, sweep on the bottom, magnetic on the latch, corner pads on the strike.