New French Doors

Here's the wall before. We've been planning doors since we built the deck. Took a while to order them, and then they sat in the yard for a couple weeks waiting to be installed.

Inside with the plaster and lathe removed, as well as the cellulose insulation. The insulation was messy and hard to clean up. I didn't want to remove all the plaster, but there wouldn't have been much left on this wall anyways. I need to do quite a bit of electrical on this wall, we're adding outside lights. and speakers. There will be volume controls for the outside speakers, and the speakers in the dining room ceiling.

We did the header wider than the doors, between the existing framing. We then added the framing for the doors.

Here's the wall cut open. I salvaged some of the shingles for reuse. Might be able to make something from some of the sheathing. It has a lot of nails in it though.

Here it is from inside. The room is so much brighter, even though it's north facing.

Here's me priming, to add more membrane. It takes 2 people to apply, the membrane, well it's easier with 2 anyways.

Here we are lifting the doors. They're really heavy, felt like I could hardly get them up the stairs.

Here I am lounging on the job. I'm actually holding the doors in. There are blocks to hold it in place.

Here they are from the inside. You can see the blocks on the inside. The wall is really out of plumb, it's 7/8" from the bottom to the top of the door. You can also see the oak parquet that someone added. We're going to remove it eventually, to expose the fir floor underneath. The parquet is good while we do the renovations though.

Here's Steve shimming the door. I would have never got it done without his help, he's a carpenter, and installs doors all the time.

Here's the construction cat trying the doors. I think he like the out swing doors, since he can open them. Well not when the hardware is on them. It took 3 days to get to this point, still a ways to go. It's going to take a while to do all the finishing. We haven't found hardware we like yet, so we just have a deadbolt for now.