Adding the patio door to the back of our house was perhaps the most dramatic remodeling adventure we've had. How do you feel when you've just sawed a very L-A-R-G-E, square, hole in the outside wall of your home? From my standpoint, I had all my fingers and toes crossed and threw in a Hail Mary and Our Father too boot. Gary and Glenn who were doing the actual cutting and holding, had very bewildered looks on their faces when the cutting was done….something like….I can't believe we just cut this hole in the house….
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Gary built an attached 10' by 12' green treated wood deck about a month before we started the patio door project in 1990. Our yard was/is very uneven and it was hard finding a level place for the picnic table. The deck was great! |
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Glenn held the house up (as if) while Gary sawed his way around the patio door opening. To the left, is the original back door opening. Both the window and the door would be filled in with siding. I was sitting on the picnic table (peanut gallery) and Margo was holding up the deck…. |
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…..drum roll please. The wall is about to unfold itself…. We planted English Ivy around the deck latticework. It didn't grow much the first year, but the second year it covered most of thelattice. |
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We painted the house July of '89. The house is 3 stories and we all watched…a little in awe…when Gary climbed up the roof to paint the border around the 3rd story. Yikes! I would have gotten sea sick. |
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The railing around the deck went on the spring of '91. The window to the left of the old backdoor, used to be a back porch. Sometime in the '50s, the previous owners, enclosed it to make a bedroom for their son. |
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At the same time, they also added on to the kitchen. However the new section settled over time. The sloped kitchen floor had entertainment value though. If you dropped a gallon of milk on the floor……you had to run like heck to catch it with a towel….LOL |
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If I understand the process, Gary nailed in a 2x4 frame of support across the door opening; built a header and nailed it in place above the doorway and then knocked out the 8' 2x4s. I have no clue if that is correct; just typing what I thought I heard…. |
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Anyway, lucky for us there was no rain that day and the new door got roughed in. That left us with the rest of the day to sit back and admire the great job they did. The deck eventually had a railing added the following spring…just in time to start grilling outside! |
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This is the finished project; we also installed bronze carriagehouse lights to each side of the door. We fell in love with the French style patio door and decided against the sliding glass door version. Someone besides me got the camera that day and surprised us (I'm kneeling down) |
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Last Updated July 10, 1998
