I shared with you all a few days ago that I had a crazy idea for our outside bedroom door. There was originally a window here, but during our bedroom remodel I had the window replaced with a door. And while I love the look of the door in our bedroom, I didn’t like the exterior of the door at all. Since this is a part of our house with the Austin stone facade and this part is the uneven part of our old house, installing a door here was a bit of a challenge. They had to cut through the stone to attach the door frame and then figure out how to trim the outside.
I worked with them at the time to find the best solution and it was the best we could find. I thought I could get by. I had convinced myself that once everything was painted, I would be happy with it. But the more I watched it, the more I hated it.
It has Hardie board cladding that is reasonably consistent with the stone exterior, and this Hardie board cladding wraps around the door jamb and meets the PVC trim on the prehung door. However, one major problem is that we were unable to fit appropriate trim over the door. So the whole thing just seemed weird to me.
This door was installed eleven months ago and I’ve been trying to find a solution ever since. But since then I have done a very large concrete project on our porch, using concrete to create a faux stone facade for the porch base area that matches the stone of the rest of the house.
During this project I learned a lot and gained some confidence working with concrete, which is how I came up with the idea for this door. I decided to remove the Hardie board siding and replace it with faux concrete blocks. But I decided to try a completely different process for this than the one I used for the porch baseboards. For the porch baseboard, I made textured silicone mats from existing bricks in our house, built a mold for each textured pad, and then poured each concrete brick individually. Then I attached these faux bricks to the porch with mortar. For this project I decided to apply the concrete directly to the surface and then shape the wet concrete to look like stones.
I started by removing the Hardie panel trim from the left side of the door to see what I was working with. I was expecting to see the 2x4s used to frame the door, but I had forgotten that they had used 1/2″ plywood on the door frame to expand that area a bit so the Hardie board could sit closer to the face of the bricks.
Instead of removing these I decided to leave them there, but I still had a lot of gaps to fill and a lot of caulking to do before I could start the fun part of this project. I used Great Stuff expanding foam to fill the gaps.
I let it expand and harden for a few hours…
…and then I cut off the excess with a sharp serrated kitchen knife.
And then I sealed those areas as well as the nail holes and any small cracks again with caulk.
When the caulk was dry, I performed another waterproofing step. I used my Semco liquid membrane…
And I applied that to the entire area, making sure that the wood, the remaining Hardie trim on the post, and any caulked areas were fully coated.
I did this extra step not only for waterproofing, but also because I didn’t want to apply the concrete to a porous surface that would absorb moisture from the concrete as it cured. This water-repellent membrane helped ensure that water remained in the concrete during the curing process instead of getting into the dry wood.
Next I decided on my pattern for the faux stones. I wanted some of the new artificial stones to be a continuation of the original stones, while I wanted others to be separate, individual stones. In other words, I didn’t want the finished door to look like I had just installed a row of five-inch thick bricks around the door. So I decided which original stones I wanted to refinish around the door and used my hand sander to sand down about two inches of the surface of those stones so I could get down to the bare stone. The stone on our house is painted and I couldn’t put concrete on top of the paint. Therefore I had to expose the bare stone to give it a “tooth” so the new concrete could adhere to it.
You can tell which ones I ground with my hand mill by the color. The color of our house is gray, so I sanded off those cream areas.
Next I needed to install a galvanized diamond mesh batten over the areas where I wanted to apply the concrete. Without this there was no chance the concrete would hold. I found this in the concrete section of my local Home Depot. It comes in a 27″ x 96″ piece, so I had to use my tin snips to cut off the size I needed, which was 7″ x 89.5″.
And then I screwed the bar into place with 2-inch external screws. I made sure to completely cover all the wood and Hardie trim and wrap it around so it meets the PVC trim on the prehung door.
After covering the entire surface with the strip, I went back and added more screws in the areas where it didn’t lie flat against the wood. If it looked like it was going to bend or give way, I added a screw.
With the batten in hand, I was finally ready to mix some concrete. For this project I used Rapid Set Cement All, the same material I used to cast the faux stones for the porch. I really like “Cement All” because it uses a really fine sand as the aggregate so it can be spread out into a really fine edge, which was important in making the stones. But I also used it for my scratch plaster. Using a 6″ x 2″ trowel, I covered the lath with the concrete, making sure I pressed the concrete really well into the lath. I wasn’t worried about how this scratch coat looked. In fact, the rougher the better. The roughness gives the next layer (i.e. the artificial stones) support.
Here’s a closer look at this scratch coat. You can see that before adding the concrete I put painter’s tape on the white PVC door trim to protect it from the concrete and to give me a clear idea of where my “bricks” need to stop.
After the scratch coat had dried for about 30 minutes (again, I used Rapid Set, which cures very quickly), I was able to start making the stones. This was the fun and creative part I was waiting for, but it was also a bit challenging because the window of opportunity to work with Cement All is very short. I mixed just enough to make one brick at a time, so I mixed a quart of dry Cement All with 6 ounces of water. Once everything was mixed, it was too thin to form stones, so I had to wait a few minutes for it to thicken. Once it was thick enough to handle without sticking to my fingers, I was ready to apply the concrete to the scratch coat and begin shaping and shaping the stone. This gave me just a few minutes to get the concrete in place, make all the shapes and textures I wanted to do, and trim off the excess at the top and bottom with my trowel. By the time I was nearing the 15 minute mark, it was already too difficult to shape and structure. So again, from the point where the concrete is strong enough to be handled and formed into a stone shape to the point where it is too difficult to form and texture is only about seven minutes. It’s a little nerve-wracking to say the least. But it’s also fun.
I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I did this because I really had no idea what I was doing and was pretty sure I would have to work a few stones before I felt comfortable with the process. So if I messed up the first few stones, these could eventually be hidden behind some pretty planters. And my first “stone” actually looked ridiculous. All I could see was some kind of smiling face of Jabba the Hutt looking at me. But because the concrete hardens so quickly, this wall could no longer be removed. (I went back with my mill and reshaped it later.) The second “stone” was better, but still not great. Again, I waited too long to texture it and by then (literally within ten minutes) it was too difficult to get it just right.
By the third stone I had gotten my process and technique much better. However, I’m going to go back and fix some of the weird parts with my sander before I paint these faux stones.
Because the preparation work took too long, I was no longer on the stones. But I’ve come far enough to see that my plan will definitely work.
This is what it looked like this morning. Everything is dry, but you can see that parts of it (the thinnest parts) have dried much darker than the rest. This is because it is so thin and cures much faster than the thick parts. It is essential to cure Rapid Set Cement All with water while it dries. So I kept my water sprayer nearby and kept it very wet for an hour. But those thin, feathery edges still hardened very quickly. I think it will be ok if the concrete is primed and painted so it can’t get wet from rain.
And although I want to repair some areas with my sander now that these have cured, overall I’m very happy with the look. I think this will look a lot better than that weird Hardie ornament on the door!
