Replacing French Doors In The Cabin

Replacing the French doors in the cabin has been on our to do list for nearly two years. We have three sets in the cabin, two in the dining room, and one on the walkout side of the basement. All were purchased at the same time from the same place and all 3 failed at the same time. 

One of the dining room doors seal had broke and moisture was between the glass, the other one in the dining room had been open and closed so many times it no longer stayed closed and was letting water, ice, and snow in. The basement one was rotting around the doorframe.

It all sounds like a complete mess, right?  Well hubby had a week where he could work from home so he decided to replace the doors. After searching far and wide he finally found 3 doors that would work. Apparently there’s a shortage of toilet paper, treated lumber, canning jar lids, and French doors in our neck of the woods. 

The two in the dining room are identical and the one going in the basement has a blind between the glass; which is fine by me it keeps anyone snooping around from seeing into the basement since we keep them closed. 

The first set hubby replaced was in the basement, for me it was out of sight out of mind. The dining room set was another thing all together.  The day he decided to replace them was the same day I was canning tomatoes.  What a mess the kitchen had jars, tomatoes, and equipment everywhere and the dining room had tools, a dog, and mess making men in the way. Why couldn’t he have picked a different day?

To get the doors to the dining room hubby put them on the forks of the bobcat, drove them around to the second story deck, and put them over the rail while one of our employees grabbed them. Nothing is ever easy around here. We intentionally made no entrance onto the second story deck from outside; the only way to access it is from the dining room. It was our way of making it less accessible to anyone who may decide to rob the place.

The first set of dining room doors went in nicely, hubby put all the trim back up, and somewhat cleaned up the mess. Now on to the other set….. That set goes in the gable end of the cabin and over time we’ve notice the wall is pushing out just enough that the doors doesn’t set square like they should. Rather than put a new set in a wonky wall hubby decided to pull the entire wall back into place using an I-beam on the outside of the cabin. (I’ll be back to show you that as it happens).

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So for now the second set in the dining room is stored in the basement and I’m hoping it gets put in before winter hits. Not only do we need it soon to keep out the weather but it’s an entirely different door; one having grids and the other doesn’t so it looks like we have a hodge podge project going on.

One thing I knew I did NOT want with the new doors was all the little grid windows. They are a pain to paint and a pain to clean. Once the solid glass set went in I couldn’t believe how much bigger it made the space feel. I would never have imagined solid glass panels would make if feel that way.

I spent an entire day, while the weather was still nice, painting the two that are in. I went with Sherwin Williams “Black Fox”, it’s not black and it’s not dark brown, its somewhere in between and is a softer look than stark black and was also a color I had on hand. That’s another thing; the other door in the dining room is “BLACK” so now I have two different colors going on too. The doors took 3 coats of paint for each side. I know it doesn’t sound like much to do but for some reason I was pooped by the time I was done. 

Now fingers crossed the last set of doors goes in here soon so I have time to paint them before winter.  You may see a few photos with mismatched doors for a while but I can’t change it so I’ll just have to live with it.