Sweeps!

 In my continued effort to keep warm air in and cold air out, I managed to find unobtrusive door sweeps for both the kitchen door and the door going upstairs. I hated drilling into my freshly refinished doors, but it's a little better now, and I don't have to jam towels under the door except on the most bitter nights.

Kitchen Door - It looks like it belongs on there. I had to put it on the outside because that's where the nice straight threshold will touch.

No light coming through, which means no air coming through! (Or at least less.)

Sweep on the stairs door.

Well... it's... better. A smaller gap, anyway.

Next up in the air containment projects is extending the weird door trim for the stairs door. I've cut the piece to fit, complete with notched angle. I'm just waiting on the paint to dry.

The door closes against this. Why doesn't it go all the way up?

This is the gap at the top of the door when it's closed. I don't get why they didn't just run it up to the ceiling. It must have served some purpose at some point to have that gap there. It appears intentional.

The other thing I'm considering is changing out the hardware on the stairs door. When it was cover in 6 coats of paint, friction and gravity held it closed. The hinges were balanced such that after the half-way point it would swing close on it's own. While I managed to balance the hinges when I replaced them (GO ME!), not there's nothing keeping it closed. If the cat was more ambitious, she could flip it own with a paw. 

Decision time!

Do I want to keep the cute, inexpensive knob because it's pretty?

It's a glazed blue ceramic cabinet knob. Sorry about the bad picture.

Or do I want to install a new old-style latch, which I already own?

It would look sort of like this, as you head up the stairs. Because of how the door is put together, the thumb-latch part would have to go on the other side.