Here’s a look at what we started with. Yikes. There was a huge gap between the door and the frame, which was letting beaucoups of air in and out of the house. If you live in, or have ever been to Texas in May, you do NOT want cool air escaping from your home! I’m pretty sure we had already hit mid-90s temperatures by this point.
A shot from the kitchen area. For the record, we had just moved in, so things were still kind of in disarray!
Again, don't judge the mess! A before shot from the living area.
My favorite part of this project was cutting a giant hole in our wall! But, this was the hard part…
Elliot and my dad cute the hole in the sheetrock first.
Side note: Did I mention my parents also live in Aggieland? No? Well, they do. I definitely have to give some credit for this project’s completion to my dad, who hung around to help out with the doors. Oh, and my brothers in law, Eddie and Ernie. They also live in town. We are super lucky to have free help so close by.
Since our house was built on nasty clay, has drainage issues, and had around 30 years to settle, the walls, ceiling, and floor are not entirely level. (For anyone concerned, we did have an engineer come check out our slab to make sure it was in good shape before buying the house.) This unevenness made putting in a new door a little more difficult. Manageable, but difficult.
The boys built a temporary support, since we were taking out a big chuck on the wall. A fallen ceiling would have been a disaster!
With the support in place, Elliot began cutting through the studs and outside wall.
Tada! Giant hole. You can see the support header has been installed above the door. This allowed us to take down the temporary support beam.
The dogs look so perplexed! They can't tell if they are in the house or outside!
Getting the rough opening right required a lot of planning, measuring, and moving of electric wires for switches. We used a reciprocating saw (A.K.A. Sawzall) to cut the opening. We had to cut plenty of sheet-rock in order to put in header supports and build a header (from 2 x 8).
Then it was time to hang the door!
This seriously took a couple of hours. The doors had to be shimmed, re-shimmed, and shimmed again to get everything level. By this point, my wonderful and upbeat husband was a little tired and frustrated. I was the designated door holder-upper, while the guys tried to figure out a solution to hanging them evenly. Since our house isn't totally level, we had trouble getting the doors to close correctly. So many tweaks!
But, we finally got the doors installed. As you can see, they close really well! Then, we added some trim around the outside of the door.
We also bought a can of spray foam insulation for doors and windows. We sprayed this from the inside. As you can see here, we went a little crazy with the yellow foam! We didn't realize how much it would expand! Fortunately, once it dries you can actually use a razor blade to cut off the excess.
We also added a new outdoor light!
Isn’t it SO much better than the old door? I think so. Here's another before and after look at the door.
If anyone is curious about the details of this project (i.e. products used, how the electrical work was done, how to make a header, etc…) drop a line. Elliot would be happy to give a full account of the french door experience.
I'll be back soon to discuss how we finished things up around the inside of the door.
