Back Door Bonanza

We are both exhausted after a marathon weekend project. One task on our to do list for quite some time was to replace the back door, which has been rotting out the floor beneath for at least as long as we have been living here.
We suspected that once we had a look at the floor, we would have a big job to replace anything rotten. We had no idea of what was below the floor, but evidence from outside suggested it was once a squirrels nest. In addition, we wanted to move the location of the door from the south wall of the porch to the east wall. The south wall is directly below the roof valley, and the ice builds up on the step making it really treacherous in winter. This was also why the door would leak when it rained.

We began Saturday morning, tearing up several layers of linoleum, chip board, 50's era tile and oil cloth to get to the real sub floor. Once we tore out the door we could see the rot extended back a foot or so from the door and also affected the sill. We decided to take out both layers of floor. The top was 1x4 tongue and groove, below that was a dogs breakfast of boards scavenged from what looked like the chicken coop.
Happily the joists were good, and the other sills were still good so we replaced the sill under the old door, and used plywood to cover the hole in the wall where the old door came out. That wall will eventually be the coat closet.
This morning we dug out the rubble under the construction. In the midst of this, we found an old green bottle, similar to a 70's era 7up bottle but without any writing on it, and a child's shoe. We levelled out the dirt and put vapour barrier over it to help seal out the damp. Then we insulated between the joists with styrofoam and fibreglass and laid plywood on top for the sub floor.
Next came the task of making a new hole for the new door. Once we opened up the east wall and exposed the studs we could see that the original door was probably there to begin with. The gable wall of the porch is constructed with a double top plate so we can use that as a header for the new door. When we insulated the porch walls a few years ago, we added studs in the right place for the door opening that we knew would eventually be there. After measuring to make sure we knew what size we wanted we went out to buy the door. By this time it was raining, so we put a plastic tent over the outside and continued to plug away. A skill saw and a reciprocating saw makes short work of several layers of sheathing and shingles.
Finally, we slotted the new door into place. It is a temporary measure so the squirrels don't come in tonight. The rough opening is a bit tight, and needs a slight adjustment before we fix it there permanently.
There is still a lot to do on this project. We need to add a bottom plate and studs in the old door opening, and replace the outside house wrap and shingles to make it weather proof. We need to finish laying the sub floor and build a set of steps up to the new door. Oh yeah, and the door needs a doorknob too.