French Doors and Room Makeover Part 1

The first time we looked at this house when house hunting, I hated the darkness of the living room.  It is right in the middle of the house and only had a set of windows facing the street. The back wall had what I described as a "bump" out.  The walls were brown and the carpet brown. Only a little light got in and it always felt like a cave.

In the first picture you can see the bump. It is painted white.  Apparently it was supposed to be a built in entertainment center, created when big screen TV's came into existence. You know, the ones with the 60" screen that took up an entire side of a room. Well, now we have flat screen TV's that are so thin they hang on the wall! I hated the bump and wanted to replace it with French doors.

Here is a view of the bump decorated. We painted out the red color on the soffit which helped to visually raise the height of the ceiling.

Here is a view from what is now the closet showing the depth of the bump. It had a parquet floor added. We investigated and found that the carpet had been laid over hardwood floors. We wanted to expose the floors eventually but in order to have the French doors swing properly over the floor we were going to have to cut out a section of the carpet.

Instead of cutting a section, Husband decided just to remove it from the living room completely.

Here is the bump removed and the carpet ripped up.

Another view of the carpet removal process.  The hardwood floors had been painted with a primer or stain blocker so they are white.

Floor and carpet.

Our contractor had to add two support studs on each side of the door opening.  Apparently there was originally a window in this spot. All the studs supporting the back wall beam had been removed and it was starting to sag slightly. (We think the former do-it-your-selfer owned a screw store as he had put everything together with a large amount of different types and sizes of screws.)

Here you can see the studs on the right and drywall going up on the left. 

Doors in! They had to be specially ordered as every door in the house is about three inches shorter than current standards. We also did not want to get into removing the soffit as they are part of the original structure and we would have had to match molding on the ceiling.

The doors go directly out to a covered patio. The yellow building beyond that is Husband's office building. It also got a new door.

View of the exterior when the doors first went in and the exterior paneling was put up.

Interior with the finish on the drywall that matches the texture of the other end wall and the dining room.  The two long walls of the room are covered with "t-one-11".

Exterior. The 1 x 6 boards had to be put up to cover the seams between the old  and new panels.

The boards were painted in white around the door and yellow across the paneling in order to show a frame around the doors and help the doors look original to the house.

I will post soon about the finished interior.  As with any project one thing leads to another: The carpet is up and the floors will be refinished in late June.  Right now I am working on painting over all the "dog poop brown" color all over the room.

Blessings,

Jeannine