Thursday, September 25, 2014

Before and After French Door Installation

 When my husband and I moved to our town back in 2009, I had decided that it was temporary and we’d “try it out,” and we definitely wouldn’t be raising our family there. A lot changes in two years I guess, because in 2011 we did what we said we weren’t and bought a house. It was a great time to buy because we could pay just as much for a mortgage as we could for rent. It just made more sense. So, here we are. Our new house is old and along with old, comes funky. It was built in 1969 and it shows. The selling feature that the realtor highlighted was that it had seven ceiling fans. Really? Is that they only thing you could come up with? Maybe she should have added that there’s only paneling on one wall. That would have been a good selling point.


 The cool thing about buying an old house is you can put your own fingerprint on it. We looked at newer houses and while, they’re nice and clean and new, they just aren’t our style (and the neighborhoods are questionable). We’d probably be tearing that one apart all the same. Despite all it’s unattractiveness, we’ve been told by several people that our new home was built really well, plus it has good “bones” and lots of storage (with the exception of walk-in closets).


 There’s such an exhausting list of things that need to be done to this house, it’s hard to know where to start. I’d say the first thing we did was paint the kids’ rooms and tear down those funky 70’s style custom made black-out curtains and accordion doors. All those little things made a difference, but what I really want to show you is the installation of our french doors. It’s the thing that has made the most impact on our living area so far (next will hopefully be flooring).


 We used to have one door opening up the the back yard, flanked by two large windows. Yes, the windows were large, but somehow the house still didn’t have a whole lot of natural light and felt really dark. We debated for quite some time on what window we would replace (and keep as a window) and what opening we would put the doors in. I thought the doors would be better put in the room that will one day be our dining room, but my husband thought they would be better going into the living room (Or is it family room? I can never keep those straight). Here’s a before pic of the wall to give you a better idea (watch for an upcoming post on that horrid fireplace). I apologize for the terrible angle, but you get the point.


Backyard wall before.jpg


 So here we are trying to figure out which window to turn into a door when...AH HA!...it occurs to me that we can make them both doors! Here we go...


Door Construction.jpg
Door construction (2).jpg


 That guy right there is my brother-in-law and owner of C3 Builders. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for him. He (along with the help of my hubby and dad) finished the installation of both doors in one day. Yep! He’s pretty awesome.


 And now the reveal…
French doors after (edit).jpg


Aaaaaaaaawww! Can’t you just hear the angels singing? Now it’s time to do something about that horrible carpet.

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