DIYers Aren't Impressed By This Front Door Upgrade: 'That Was A Waste Of Time And Money'
TikTok user John Dolechek had a problem he couldn't ignore: The front door to his house was completely exposed to sun and rain, and the eaves were too small to offer any relief. Plus, he felt it was plain. Because rainwater can seep through an exposed door, and sunlight can heat it up and raise the temperature inside the house, he decided he needed a "trellis" over the door. The results have been panned on TikTok and Facebook, and it's easy to see why. The "trellis" (it's more like an awning or a pergola) didn't do its job, and when Dolechek tried to fix that, he created a design nightmare.
The structure is simple enough, and it's actually pretty elegant. Two triangular brackets attached to the siding support a pair of cross beams, which in turn support multiple brackets that extend outwards from the siding, a few inches below the eaves. Dolechek made this structure from beefy lumber and stained it brown, and by itself it looks stable and attractive. However, it's too small for the porch, and that's a major — and very visible — flaw.
Unfortunately, Dolechek tucked the structure right up against the eave and didn't give it a downward slope, so rather than protecting the front door from rain, it actually directed runoff from the roof toward the door and made it wetter. His solution was to install flashing followed by clear plastic corrugated roofing. The cheap appearance of that material detracted from the solid wood structure he built, and it did little to block sunlight.
Low marks from reviewers
Dolechek's TikTok video got 231 comments, and he posted the same video on Facebook, where it got 1,700 more. One of the main criticisms was that the house had no gutters, and it's hard not to agree that Dolechek's time would have been better spent fixing that. Reviewers also noted the lack of downward slope, and some commented that water sitting in the valleys of the corrugated plastic roofing was likely to cause discoloration from mold. Moreover, because clear plastic roofing tends to turn brittle and yellow in the sun, it doesn't make an ideal front-door feature.
To make matters worse, Dolechek installed the flashing first, then put the roofing over it. This is the opposite of the way he should have done it. You want roof flashing to direct water onto the roof, so it should be on top of the roofing material in this case. But the way it was installed, water can seep under the roof and drip onto the porch from the edge of the flashing.
@johndolechek how we added a clear roof to our front door wood trellis without making it ugly #DIY #HomeImprovement #FrontYard #DIYProjects #HomeRenovation
Design-wise, it's hard to ignore the structure's lack of proportion to the porch and the house. TikTok user Kim aptly commented that "...it's like looking at a man wearing a hat that is four sizes too small." The "trellis" should extend out at least as far as the edge of the porch to effectively provide rain protection. It would have offered even more of sense of protection if he had made it wide enough to extend slightly beyond the edges of the porch.