The flies have been surprisingly terrible this year in Yuma, AZ. Last year we left our front door open most of the winter and rarely even saw a fly…or any other bug for that matter. I assumed it was too dry in this part of the desert for bugs to survive. That may be true, but the area received a considerable amount of extra rain this year. The cactuses are actually alive to prove it! And so are the flies. After many a morning swatting flies while trying not to spill our coffee (or worse, having dead flies land in it!), we decided we needed to get to the bottom of our screen door complications.
The Problem and the Plan for the Screen Door
Our camper originally had a standard RV style door with a screen. When Jonathan replaced the ugly door with our cozy blue, home style door, he left the hardware for the screen there in case we decided to use the RV style screen with our new door. The plan was to try and find an alternative solution for the screen….perhaps something collapsible or that rolled up and out of the way. Eventually we decided on a magnetic screen door, put in our order on Amazon for the smallest size available and then immediately canceled it because we just weren’t confident we could make it work. The smallest size was still much too large for our tiny house door. But in the end, with the flies pestering us to death day in and day out, Jonathan went ahead and ordered that screen door. We would just have to make it work!
Sizing the screen down to fit
Upon examination, I could see that I could easily (though time stakingly) pull the seams out of the velcro border, trim the screen down to the proper fit, and then sew the velcro back in place. I asked Jonathan how much it cost, and when I knew I only had $20 to loose if I messed it up, I dove right in. I grabbed some headphones, opened my favorite podcast, and started ripping out stitch after stitch.
I measured everything out carefully and used sewing pins to mark where I would be trimming the screen. Then I grabbed my sewing scissors and did the scary thing! I started cutting!! No going back now. I cut both sides down about 4 inches but I left the bottom to trim later.
And then it was time to put the velcro border back in place. It was actually binding tape with a strip of velcro attached to that. So as I was seam ripping, I pinned the velcro to the binding so it wouldn’t fall out of place.
I went through and picked out every bit of thread left over from seam ripping. When I was done with that Jonathan said it looked like I’d given someone a hair cut with all the thread piled up together. It was a lot of thread and it literally took me all day to seam rip this little project.
Putting it back together
When I was ready to put things back together, I spread the screen out on the floor of my studio so I could lay it flat. I adjusted the pins I had used to hold the velcro in place to now grab the screen and envelope the edge in the binding as well. By the time I was done with this it was well past my bedtime and I was exhausted. But I really wanted to finish it up and see how it fit the door before going to bed! Ah well, when my body decides it’s ready for bed, I just start shutting down. So I knew I had to listen and off to bed I went.
First thing the next morning I was back at it. By the time it was warm enough for flies to be buzzing around, I had the screen door in place with just the bottom left to trim. This turned out to be slightly complicated because of having to close off the corners. I also hadn’t thought ahead and had trimmed the bottom pieces when I shaved the sides down, meaning I didn’t have the excess to turn under and hem the corners. So I ended up adding a little seam and using pieces I had trimmed off both sides to extend the bottom pieces to give myself room for the finishing touches.
You can see how much I had to shorten the length of the screen door as well. I was a little concerned about the magnets in the center possibly not lining up in a way that would encourage the screen to close behind you like it should. I noticed they had carefully placed tall and short magnets at certain places to help the screen close smoothly. I was VERY glad this did not end up being an issue.
In the end I think it turned out quite nicely! We’ve been enjoying fresh air with the door wide open without all the flies. Now we can drink our coffee in peace! Oh and the cat? She just pokes her nose down there at the bottom and opens and closes this door for herself whenever she pleases. The first time she did it she was EVER so proud of herself!
