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Projects | French Doors As we were moving into our 1895 old home, we noticed that there used to be doors between the living room and reception hall. Didn't pay a whole lot of attention to that detail until the first winter heating bill arrived. That got me REAL interested in anything that would make our old home more energy efficient.
For some reason, one of the two previous owners had removed the French doors and used them to create a vestibule for the front door. I suspect they were trying to reduce heat loss when that huge front door was held open for guests. Those French doors, it turns out, is what kept the lone thermostat in the living room from being fooled. With no doors, a lot of heat blasted up the stairs to the second and third floor, leaving the first level pretty cold. The boiler kept boiling and so did all of us upstairs. We could have used curtains, and seriously thought about that alternative. While on a trip we had visited a restored museum-house that used heavy velvet curtains to close off a study from the rest of the house. The curtains were nice, but looked more like something the cat would enjoy climbing, than a heat barrier. A trip to the home center was even less rewarding. All the French-style doors.....well, looked too new. A neighbor suggested we try yet another alternative...junk. The French doors you see in the serene picture above are from a local salvage yard. All the glass was intact along with the hardware, but the doors were not the right size to fit in the opening. The wood was in great shape. We took them in spite of the wrong size, with me of course thinking that this was a job right up my alley. After all, I have a bucket boss full of cool looking tools. Since the salvaged doors were not the correct size, the opening had to be reduced a bit and then adjusted for the usual sloped floor. I, being the antichrist of handy men, attempted to install the doors on my own. After about a week, I called someone who actually knows what they are doing and he took about ten minutes to fix the job. Personally, I think he just had better tools. I am rather proud of the faux finish I managed to put on the doors. They had been painted white, but there were enough spots where the paint had come off that you could tell the wood underneath was slightly water damaged. Painted the living room side to match the beige, ecru, whatever shade, then made up my own solution for the entrance hall side. After funneling a couple glasses of wine down some guests, they said it looked better than just ok. I can live with that. |
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