Operation "Dog Door"

Yesterday I installed a dog door. The basic steps are:

1. Choose a place for the door.
2. Beware of what's in the wall. Make sure you're between studs and there's no electrical, pipes, etc. in your way. Lucky me...I got to put the door where I wanted it.
3. Carefully mark your rectangle on the inside wall making sure it's square and level, then start cutting. I recommend using a simple drywall saw. This way if you hit anything "important" you'll feel it right away. If you use a power tool, chances are you'll cut right through the wire, pipe, etc, and be sorry. You can see my drywall saw in the pic below next to the hammer.
4. Now do the same on the outside wall, but this time, use a power tool. Do you know what hardi-plank siding is? It's basically sheets of concrete made to look like wood. Turns out it's not fond of jig saw blades. :)
5. I'm going to gloss over the final critical step and just say: Install the door.

I bought a double flap door. Having 2 flaps, one on the inside wall and one on the outside helps keep the weather out. Here's a shot of the first cut-out. After removing the insulation I can see the plywood for the outside wall. After cutting the outside wall Bella got curious. I imagine she's thinking, "Um...Dad...why did you break the wall?" Also, you can't see all the way down, but there's about a 2-foot drop on the outside, which leads to the next project: Operation "Staircase". Phoebe didn't waste any time trying it out. She doesn't know it's a dog door. Maybe we'll call it a pet door instead so the cats don't feel left out. Here's what it looks like installed.

I'm not known for my handy-man skills, so this was a cool project for me. I was able to knock it out in a day, albeit a long day, and I got to buy a new jig saw. Oh yeah, back to the hardi-plank siding. If you're going to cut it with a jig saw, use carbide-coated blades. If you use anything else, you'll need 4 or 5 blades because the concrete chews up the teeth pretty quickly.