Keeping out the little things

It’s the little things in life, y’know?

We have some glass doors opening out onto a lovely deck with a beautiful view. As the weather warms up, we've been leaving the doors open to invite the spring inside.

But there are other things besides the spring weather that can come in through those open doors. Aside from mosquitoes and other pests (wasps!), we also have songbirds. ...

...and hummingbirds.

These critters do best outside, not ricocheting around indoors and smashing into impenetrable windows.

What we needed was a screen door of some sort, but those aren't readily available for double-door setups. So we ended up purchasing one of those hanging magnetized screen panels. Frankly we didn't hold out much hope it would perform well, but decided it was worth a shot.

Despite measuring, the screens were a touch small for our double doors. Don solved this by building a frame to place over the doorway.

The screening came with a roll of sticky-backed "hooked" Velcro that glued to the frame.

It took no time to get the "hooked" side of the Velcro up.

It took even less time to get the screen up, pressing the pre-Velcro'd "looped" sides to the corresponding "hooked" Velcro on the frame.

The center seams are magnetized, and gently snap together when the panels fall closed

There was just one glitch in this set-up. "Let me in!"

Fortunately it took Mr. Darcy no time at all to figure out how to go back and forth through the screen panels. And wow, does he love lying out on the porch, watching the world go by.

These panels are a game-changer. They fit perfectly (thanks to Don's frame) and work beautifully.

Now the spring can come into the house.

Yep, it's the little things in life.  Or in this case, keeping out the little things.

Frugal fixes

A few months ago when we had many of the cows in the driveway area, our little Jersey heifer Polly decided she liked window screens. As in, eating them. Bad Polly, bad! Nonetheless, the damage was done: most of the screens within her reach were either severely damaged or just plain gone. (Miraculously, this apparently did no damage to her digestive system.) Bottom line, I removed all the screens and stored them away until such time as we moved Polly and the other animals down to the pasture.

But with the warm weather upon, we needed the screens back on the windows to keep the mosquitoes out. Time to do some frugal fixes.

For the badly damaged screens, the entire mesh needed to be replaced. So I pulled the rubber gasket from around the perimeter and took out the screen.

Meanwhile we had some screening we'd bought at a yard sale a few years ago. It had holes here and there, so we cut out whole screens from the most non-hole-y parts.

Then came the tedious process of poking the gasket back into the frame. Took a long time.

For screens that had less damage, we could get away with patches (often using the leftover undamaged portions of the badly damaged screens). I trimmed the torn areas...

...and fitted the spots with patches, which I sewed on.

The results may not be beautiful, but the screens are perfectly functional and it saved us bucko bucks from buying new screens.