@JSingleton, first you could use a magnet and reed switch sensor for the door. I recently installed NODE-RED on a Pi:
I haven’t have a chance to play with it yet but it could do some cool stuff for you including doing the Blinky Tape and and data logging. Using the local cloud would also be good but it does not support Spark.subscribe yet so that may be a problem. Keep us informed cause this sounds fun! 