Anatomy of a Remodel: Door to Door

Today we are talking doors.
We made the decision to replace all the upstairs doors despite the extra expense because it was just going to look better. We are quite a bit over budget because we continued to add things to be done. And because we were the victims of our own success. Everything we did was so nice that it just made almost everything original look grotty.
We also needed new doors downstairs because the bedroom doorway had been moved and we preferred to start from scratch and because a previously open doorway was being given doors.

Before we see pictures I should explain that the doors were often put on and then taken off over the course of several weeks. Doors were put on for an initial fit and then taken off for finishing, put on again with one set of hinges, taken off when we changed our minds and wanted other hinges, put on when… Well you get the picture.

The room that was to be Mrs. Remodel’s art studio came without doors. The previous owners had a curtain that went across the opening (and which went with them when they moved). Mrs. R wanted doors so she could shut herself away for any number of reasons including some privacy to mess up a painting she might be working on.
The opening wasn’t a standard size so Mr. & Mrs. Remodel looked into custom doors. They found a very nice pair of doors with green glass molded to look like bamboo. They were very nice. Very, very nice. But they were over $2,000. Next…

So Mr. R reduced the size of the opening so we could buy off the shelf (so to speak) French doors from Lowes, which cost $250.

Of course French doors aren’t very private.

So we bought some window film in a bamboo design from ArtScape (bought at Home Depot before the carpet fiasco), which provides the amount of privacy Mrs. R likes (it’s an English thing) while still allowing light in.
The film is very easy to put on. We did it in the garage with the doors horizontal, resting on tables.
The handles (throughout) are from Lowes.

Mr. Remodel liked the idea of having a French door the master bedroom to match the art studio but there was the privacy issue again. Mr. & Mrs. R did not want to use the bamboo film again so they scratched their heads looking for another solution.
They thought of putting wallpaper in the glass area with a different design inside from the outside. Another idea was to put fabric over a wooden frame and attach it to the door on the bedroom side but we had some issues with it that made it problematic.

One day Mr. R was online looking at window films and found one by ArtScape that had not shown up during previous searches. It was perfect for the tropical foliage look we wanted.

Excellent!

We finished the doors (which all came from Lowes) with a polyurethane finish for a natural wood look.
The door in place opens into the walk-in closet. The opening is smaller than a regular doorway so we bought a regular door and cut it down width-wise. Why did we do that? I think it was cheaper than buying a door in that size.
The doors cost around $100 each.

Here’s one of the doors, which was lying down (it was tired) for bedroom three.

Here is the other one for the upstairs bathroom.

For bedroom two we decided on another French door to bring some natural light to the landing. As yet we have not decided on a window film for the door.

The glass closet doors are original to the house. Once we cleaned them up (including scraping stickers off the glass) and bought some new track hardware, they looked and worked fine.