French Doors

We've had a few setbacks since we moved to this house. The plumbing, the tree, something stolen from my husband, and then to top it all off...broken sliding patio doors.

When we moved in we knew we didn't like the sliding doors but they functioned and it was something a bit further down on our list of priorities. Eventually I knew I wanted to replace them with lovely wood out-swing french doors that would match the wood windows in this house. But I was NOT wanting to replace them anytime soon. 

This is what the sliding doors looked like while we were moving in

You can see the super dated curtains and valance on the brass trimmed doors here. So I got busy and pulled those drapes off and the valance down only to discover...a weird random fluorescent light bar had been hidden by the valance. I know the picture below is dark but you can see the light bar above the doors in it.

I was already busy painting paneling and trying to prep the walls for their new lovely shade. Then one afternoon, right before my husband was to leave for the fire station (that's always when stuff happens), we heard the kids playing and then a loud crash followed by the sound of breaking glass.

NOT my favorite sound people!

We rushed to the family room only to find the door completely shattered. Turns out my son had locked my daughter in the backyard and she was a wee bit unhappy about that situation and began throwing herself at the door. She was barefoot and when she swung her tiny little hips into the doors that last time, it shattered inward. God was watching over our little nugget because I still don't know how she kept from falling through the doors and didn't get a single cut on her. Not even her feet! 

The husband was beyond furious, but did a patch job before he had to leave for work. I thought it looked like a nightmare spider of some sort. I was also nervous that the dogs would lean against it and we would have more glass and then injured dogs - but we lucked out there too!

In order to feed the dogs or let them in or the children out we had to start using the other side of the sliding doors. That side didn't work so well. It came off the track multiple times and was very difficult to move at all. 

I priced the wood doors and they were really too expensive for now so we compromised and bought in-stock steel doors from Lowes. It gave us the look and saved us about $2300 for the time being. Eventually those gorgeous wood out-swing doors will be there, just not right now.

Our Great Dane Slate found it really fun to annoy my husband while he was installing the new doors :)

There is still a lot of work to be done. Trim needs to be installed, sheetrock needs to be patched, and I need to paint the paneling to the east of the doors again - we accidentally broke one of the panels when we removed them to install the doors and I had to grab one from the stack I had taken down for the chalkboard wall in the breakfast nook. It's all coming together though, and I have to say that for cheap steel doors I really love the look.

The children are currently doing a long chore list for money equivalent to "pay" us for the doors - and maybe (hopefully) learn a lesson in there as well!