Our customers Jeff and Susan were looking for a way to enhance the privacy of their home office, and contacted Interior Door Concepts to see what we could do for them.  During our free in-home consultation, we reviewed their needs with them, and measured the opening where they wanted doors installed.

Based on the conversation with Jeff and Susan, our proposal was a pair of interior French doors with a fixed lite over the top.  The interior design of their home favored a traditional 10-lite French door.  We enhanced the installation with an upgraded lite over the doors.

Instead of the usual clear glass, Jeff and Susan wanted something that would make the installation really stand out without being too “out there” for the interior design of the home.  We selected a Flemish style glass (sometimes called “heavy water” glass) for the fixed lite.  This Flemish style glass makes the fixed lite stand out without detracting from the attractive doors.

The doors Interior Door Concepts installed are 34″ wide, a standard width door, but one that is not normally in-stock at the big-box retailers.  Because the door was not available at the big-box stores, the other proposals Jeff and Susan received were from contractors that wanted to shrink the opening with new studs and sheet rock so they could install a standard off-the-shelf door unit.  The problem with shrinking the opening is two-fold.  First, the arch would have been lost and the room would have looked smaller.  Second, the installation would have taken a week, once the time  for construction, tape, float, texture, paint, and installation were added up.  By contrast, the installation you see in the photos above only took about 2 hours.

Interior Door Concepts was able to complete the interior French Door installation in only two hours because we complete much of the work in our shop before we come to the home for the installation.  The shop work consists of building the jamb, cutting the doors, mortising and boring the doors, installing the T-astragal and flush bolt, and pre-painting the materials.

Interior Door Concepts uses Sherwin-Williams Kem Aqua water-borne lacquer to paint the doors and materials.  This paint is great for doors and trim because it cures quickly, without the usual tackiness you get with latex and enamel paints.  And the Kem Aqua has a great durable finish that stands up well to the use that doors see in your home.  For the convenience of our customers, we keep the five most popular Sherwin-Williams white colors in stock: Extra White, Dover White, Alabaster, Pure White, and Snowbound.  We can get any color you wish for your interior French doors, but we do charge a small color match fee for using a non-stock color.

The French doors are fitted with tempered glass panes that make them resistant to breakage.  If they do get broken, the glass falls into little pieces that are much less dangerous that the shards that come from non-tempered glass.

If you would like to have French doors installed to enhance your home’s interior design or to create a private office, give us a call at 713-467-3667.

Take care,

Dave