I bought a house recently that has French Doors on the second floor. Looks nice but there is no balcony so watch out below. The other problem is that there are no screens so I can't really use them.
I am thinking about replacing the doors with a couple of casement windows. Is this simply a remove the door stick in windows type of job or does this require professional installation.
Thanks in advance.
On 03 Dec 2003, Jay Bergmaninni spake unto rec.woodworking:
Is this the room that your mother-in-law will be staying in? If so, you might want to hold off.
If not, then it isn't that big a job. Pull off the inside trim and figure out what the rough opening will be after the door and its casing are removed. You can make the window height whatever you need by framing up from the floor with 2x4s (or 6s or whatever matches the existing framing). Go to your supplier and have him show you what your options are for the specs you give him. You'll have to redo the trim inside (and out, most likely).
It's a weekend's worth of work, if you've never done it before.
Scott
Thanks Scott.
It's not for my mother-in-law. She stays in the sub-basement (It was a difficult deal to work out with my wife). The only problem is that every time she visits, I have to spend money on electricity to run the sump-pump. Maybe I should get an inflatable bed that floats?
Do yourself a favor, especially now that it's colder outside. Take off the inside trim, measure the side to side rough opening, (and here is the difference), go to your home center before taking the doors down and tell them the rough opening you have. Then you can reframe the opening to fit the window you bought, after taking the doors/casing off. One other word of caution, if the person who installed the doors in the first place never did anything else to use the doors, I might check to make sure they put in the proper, (read strong enough) header above the door opening. It has been my experience many times when removing windows and/or doors done by an inexperienced carpenter, the headers are not up to code. A simple header is to sandwich a piece of plywood between your header lumber, and double the jack studs on both ends.
Dave
Do yourself a favor, especially now that it's colder outside. Take off the inside trim, measure the side to side rough opening, (and here is the difference), go to your home center before taking the doors down and tell them the rough opening you have. Then you can reframe the opening to fit the window you bought, after taking the doors/casing off. One other word of caution, if the person who installed the doors in the first place never did anything else to use the doors, I might check to make sure they put in the proper, (read strong enough) header above the door opening. It has been my experience many times when removing windows and/or doors done by an inexperienced carpenter, the headers are not up to code. A simple header is to sandwich a piece of plywood between your header lumber, and double the jack studs on both ends.
Dave
I might be getting old but I swear I only posted that once. "And no Officer, I don't think my brake pedal looks like the gas pedal, and so what if my blinker has been on for the last ten miles."
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