New Patio Doors

As you know, we are BIG DIY'ers and there have only been a couple of projects we've hired someone else to do. In fact, I can only think of 3 times we've done that here, at the little brick house. We hired someone to install our new HVAC system, remove all 6 trees in the front yard and this patio door project.

This was a big project, we both just didn't feel confident in doing it. And since there had been water damage to these doors, we wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. We had complete confidence in the contractor we hired for this job.

This is the damage we initially found. All of the doors had water damage near the bottom. Great...😣

Let me show you what the patio doors looked like from the beginning. This was the first day we walked through the house. Gotta love the 80's teal and peach.... Hey I can't knock it too much, those were my wedding colors. 😍

Then we ripped out the carpet and put up some curtains. Don't you love our random rug situation? Well, it was better than the carpet.... that was old and musty. 

We'll get around to the floors. Actually, our contractor told us not to do the floors until the new doors were installed. Worked for us!

So, there are two actual doors that are moving, but the outer 'doors' are actually stationary and don't move. Basically, just big windows.

Our first quote to replace the entire unit, (because it's all one piece 😳) was for over $5000. Not including installation. Ummm, that's a no!

Next option was just doors and build in the sides. Yes! That'll work. The doors were about $2000. That's better. But of course they had to be custom, because our existing doors aren't standard height. Let's add about $300-$400 to that quote.

I was picky about what kind of doors I wanted. They needed to be french doors, with a left door swing. Each door had to be less than 30" wide. I also wanted grids, but the grids needed to be inside, between the glass. I didn't want to have to clean each little window at a time. 

Alright, after about 10 weeks waiting for the doors to get in, we were ready to do this! Yay!!!

The day before the doors were delivered our contractor came over to see how easy it would be to take out the big windows. Turns out it wasn't too difficult.

The next day the patio doors were delivered and they already had all the doors and windows out. Looks so weird with it all open! 

There was definitely damage under the threshold. Nice...😑

He cut it all out and repaired it. 👍

Now we're ready for some new doors! Let's start with the frame.

Once that was in place, they began to build frames for the sides.

Once installed they put plywood on them and wrapped them with house wrap.

Then the doors were installed. They made it look so easy! 

This is what it looked like from the inside.

Hubs and I agreed to finish off the inside of the wall ourselves. We're pretty good with insulation and drywall. That definitely saved us some $$. Which we've already done.

The next day they came back to finish off the panels on the outside. He build a white frame for each panel and then created a siding/shiplap style to finish off the outside. It's all pvc material, so none of it will rot, warp or discolor. 💗

He bought a large 4x8 sheet of this pvc material and ripped it into planks, cut to size and routed one side to fit over the edge of the previous plank. He glued and nailed everything in place. Doesn't it look great?!

I am thrilled with how it all turned out! It looks soooo good!! 😍

The doors work beautifully. They've been installed for about a month and we haven't had one problem. My shoulder is happy, I don't have to ram it into the door to open it. 😜

It's going to look even better when we finally get around to painting the house. Hopefully, next year...

This was a job we were definitely glad we hired out!

Blessings,
Lori