Last year I made a new door sill, but I’m going to have to start over and make a new one. Before I do I thought I’d ask advice on how to do it better this time. 

 

I’m starting over because my husband doesn’t like the color I stained/varnished it, and also because I made a mistake when chiseling out an area where our security door needed to fit. It will look bad in that spot even after caulking.

 

Another problem with this one is that it is bowed and doesn’t sit flat on the floor, with about 3/8” gap at highest point. That said, I never secured it to the ground, but I think it’s so bowed that it would still not sit flat even after installed. I would have avoided a piece of wood that was this bowed, so I’m thinking it bowed when I varnished it. I might have put all the varnish on one side at one time-I’m guessing that could be the culprit? In the photo you can see where it is scraped by the security door in the middle where it is bowed. 

 

Also, I used red oak from Lowe’s but I’ve read that white oak is more ideal for exterior use. There is a lot of cover over our door and we don’t get much moisture there, even when it rains here in the desert. Do you think it’s okay to use another piece of red oak in this case or should I hunt down something else?

 

So now that I’ve laid out the situation, my questions regarding the second sill are:

 

-Should I varnish the sill in intermittent applications, moving from top to bottom to avoid the bowing? I’m assuming it does need something stronger than paint to protect from moisture. I used a spar varnish before. This time I’m thinking an ebony stain to create a gray tone, then varnishing again…

 

-I have a concrete floor. Should I just glue the sill in place or do I really need to make a point to screw it in (and I guess countersink the screws into the sill)? There are existing holes where the metal threshold was. I love how easy just gluing it sounds, but I don’t want it to destroy the floor if we ever need to take it up for some reason.

 

-The sill I already made is flat on the bottom. Should I route out a shallow channel underneath, or put down a layer of something to create a cushion between the sill and the floor? This thing will be getting a lot of traffic.

 

I didn’t mean to write a whole book, here! Thanks so much to whoever reads this and can offer advice.