Replace a Single Door with A Double French Door

Once there was a single door.  Then after lots of cutting and ripping and building there was a beautiful french door. 

This is going to be the bedroom eventually and I didn’t want a dinky steel metal door to step out onto a future patio.  So instead of spending 300 on a new door that fit the single door whole, I spent 399 on a double wide french door.  At the same time I also picked up an 8′ length of pine to make the top trim on the outside longer (wider).

Normally this would be a pretty easy remove some studs and bottom plate, however this is a slab foundation with an 8″ wall around the perimteter, which means we needed to cut into the concrete with a saw to remove it where the door would go.

It was basically a long horizontal cut, and break the rest out with a jackhammer.

This left a pretty rough spot and so we built a form and filled it back in with concrete.  We built the threshold up 4″ because I was planning on doing a concrete overpour for radiant heat.

While the concrete was drying that night I made sure to get the first coat of paint on so I could get another coat on the following night and be dry the next day to install.

The following day when the concrete had dried enough to work on (its not really going to support any weight) I re-built a header for the door, framed up the sides and slipped the door in place.

After securing it in place, I set the trim (that was all dry… :)

Project Breakdown