Sliding Patio Door - NO MORE!

Summer time, summer time, sum, sum, summer time!  Oh how I love summer time!  I love having my kiddos home, the leisureliness, the lack of a strict routine, spontaneous outings/adventures, trips to the beach, swimming in the pool, the warmth of the hot sun, shorts and flip flops, ice cream, barbeque's, and the list goes on and on.  Yes, folks this is definitely my favorite time of year.  We have been having such a wonderful summer!

My hubby and I have been rather productive around the house with getting to some of the projects we have put off, or secretly hoped they will take care of themselves :)  My hubby has been far more productive then I, if I must be honest.  Our home was built nearly 13 years ago this September, so with age comes repairs.  For the past two years, our sliding patio door has not functioned properly.  The door became impossible to slide open.  Well, it didn't take long to realize that moisture had gotten behind the fascia board just below the door.  When rain fell from the roof, it landed on our deck and splattered back on the fascia board.  Over time, the wood began to rot, and oh boy did it rot!  When moisture gets trapped, it continues to decay the wood, and it causes the wood to swell, thus the reason why we couldn't open the patio door well.  Our quick fix was to take a Skil Saw and cut the top portion of the door off, just an inch or so, so it would slide on the track better.  This did the trick, but we knew we would need to minimally replace the fascia board and gut out any rot.  The sliding door really needed to be replaced as we could no longer raise or lower the door on the track, as we striped it the multiple times we "tried" to fix the issue with it not sliding well.  We have also been considering updating our kitchen in the near future, and of course I really want more storage space.  So with that, we decided we would replace our sliding patio door, which was 6 feet wide, with a single-hinged full glass patio door (36" wide).  We felt like this would meet both needs, as we needed a new door, and by downsizing to a single-hinged door, I would gain 3-4 feet of wall space for a pantry cabinet.  Here's a picture of our sliding door.  We planned to put the single-hinged patio door on the right-hand side of the patio door, with the hinges against the far right-hand side and the door handle on the left-hand side of the door.

We have learned from experience, it's best to hire the professionals to replace doors and windows.  So, we called up our favorite contractor, and asked him to do the job.  We spent a great deal of time looking at doors, and trying to determine what we really wanted.  We ended up going with the Andersen A-Series Hinged Patio Door.

A-SERIES

HINGED PATIO DOOR

• Traditional French door styling
• Energy efficient
• Solid wood door
• Quality construction with mortise-and-tenon dowel joints
• Multipoint locking system that seals the doors tight at the top, center and bottom

The interior part of the door is wood, and the exterior is vinyl.  Though there's ample choices within that.  We ended up ordering the door with a wood interior and white vinyl exterior.  The hardware we chose was Satin Nickel.  It was a special order door, and took about 3-4 weeks to arrive at our local Lumber Company.  

Our contractor arrived on a hot, July morning, and began by taking the old slider out, and then framed up the 3-foot section of the opening that was now going to be a wall.  As he went to put the new door in, he noticed there was some damage to the vinyl on the exterior of the door.  Panic set in of course, since I now have a hole in my house and no new door to put in.   Our lumber company was great and dealt with the issue promptly, but the best they could do was get us a new door in 3 days.  So, our contractor hung the door that was damaged, and then when the new door arrived, he came back to install that door.  It looks beautiful.  It has taken me a bit to get accustomed to not having a slider, for the simple reason that our view from inside the house of our patio and backyard is much smaller.  However, I am thoroughly loving the fact that I now have more wall space and anticipate the day when we can add a pantry cabinet!  Oh, and for those who may be wondering if my kitchen is darker without that additional door panel, it really isn't.  But, here's the reason....our patio is screened in with a roof and all.  Since we added that on almost 2 years ago, we had a lot less light coming through the sliding patio door.  With half that door now walled up, I really haven't noticed any decrease in the amount of light that naturally comes through the door!  Here's a look at it now, though we haven't gotten around to putting up the mouldings yet, and still need to do another coat of paint.  

Look at all the wall space!  I'm really excited about it!  Oh, and as you can see I haven't taken the protective plastic off the interior of the door, but we are waiting to paint/stain the door before we take it off.  Now, to decide whether we should paint or stain it?  Any thoughts.  I was thinking I would initially stain it a dark cherry to go with our table, but then I was thinking a black or dark gray might look nice too.  HMMMM?