This week is going so much better than last week! Last week was pretty much a wash. It got off to such a terrible start with Matt not feeling well, and then me not feeling well, and then other things getting in the way of progress. So this week, I’m finally getting things done. I had hoped to get the French doors completely finished yesterday so that I could start on the floors bright and early today.
That didn’t quite work out like I had planned, but at least I now have doors on the bedroom suite that are usable and will close completely! They’re all painted and ready for the finishing touches. Here’s how they look this morning.
So let me back up a bit and remind you that this used to be a cased opening with no doors.
When we decided to turn this whole area into a bedroom suite, we obviously needed to separate the area from the music room with doors. But I didn’t want to do anything that would disturb the music room side of the cased opening because I didn’t want to mess up the music room walls and have to repair the stenciled walls. So I measured the opening, and then bought French doors that were the next size up. The opening is just over 45 inches wide, so I purchased two 24-inch doors. They were easy to hang using non-mortise hinges, but obviously they wouldn’t close properly.
After installing the doors and attaching the stop to the door jambs, this is what the doors looked like. Obviously, they were too wide, so the doors wouldn’t close properly.
So after marking the overlap on each door (about three inches), I cut off half that amount (about 1.5 inches) plus about 1/16-inch from each door using my circular saw. That left a bit of a gap between the doors so that they would open and close easily. So then I used this trim to cover over the gap. On the music room side of the doors, I nailed this trim to the door on the right.
When the left door is open, you can see that the trim is attached to the door on the right.
Here’s a look from the other direction. Please excuse the mess. 😀
And then on the other door, I attached the same trim to the foyer side of the door so that it would cover the gap on the foyer side when the doors are closed.
Those pieces of trim serve another purpose, though. Not only do they cover over that small gap between the doors, but they also keep the doors closed. As you can see below, I installed a ball catch on the top of the door on the right side when looking at the doors from the foyer side.
So the trim on that door closes up against the other door, holding it in place, and the ball catch on top of that door keeps both doors closed.
Here’s another look to help that make sense. You can see that nothing is holding that door on the left closed except for the trim on the door on the right, and then the ball catch holds the door on the right closed.
So now the doors actually close and stay closed. And there’s no visible gap between the doors.
And sweet Cooper is wondering why in the world he’s been closed out and can’t be stuck to my side where he usually is. 😀
So we now have working doors that actually fit, and I was able to add doors to a cased opening without disturbing anything on the music room side of the wall. It worked out perfectly!
Here’s a view of the closed doors from the music room side.
I still plan to add privacy film to the glass. I had hoped to get that done yesterday, but I ran into a problem when I started peeling off the protective plastic from the glass yesterday. I thought I was never going to get that plastic off because it was really stuck on there. I’ve never had this much trouble getting that protective plastic off of French doors before. And every single one of them left behind this gooey residue that won’t come off with regular glass cleaning products. I even tried removing it with acetone, and it still didn’t come off easily. This is going to require Goo Gone or something like that.
So that was very frustrating, and it kept me from finishing the doors completely yesterday. If these had come off cleanly, I could have gotten the privacy film finished. But now I’m going to have to spend time today cleaning all of this gooey residue off of the front and back of all 20 panes. I mean, there wasn’t a single pane where the plastic came off cleanly. This residue is on all 20 of them, front and back.
Oh well. It’s just an annoying setback. As far as the pulls, I went back and forth on what kind of pulls to get for the doors, and I finally decided to use these simple matte black pulls instead of actual door knobs.
And then to lock the door, I plan to get a pretty surface mount bolt lock. I haven’t found one that I like yet, but I used to have one on the hallway bathroom door that was really pretty. I want to find a similar one in matte black.
So there are still some finishing touches that need to be taken care of, but at least we have doors that will actually close and stay closed! And that means that I can finally get started on the floors without my nosey cat and dog getting in the way. 😀
I’m just so happy to finally have some progress! Of course, installing the flooring is going to make the biggest difference, but this had to be done first.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
