Noobies VÜ

So excited, I finally have my barn-style doors put in! They aren't completely done at this point.
I was able to make a couple of adjustments this morning that I had an epiphany about last night, so that was good. But I need to put on the hardware (handles) and finish putting the trim on beside the uprights to make it look purty. So how did this all begin? Here for your viewing pleasure, the tribulations of putting in doors in a house that didn't want them.

The people who owned the house before (not sure if it was them or the builders or someone in between, let's just leave it as the PODAs -previous owner dumb asses), apparently put doors in where there weren't any or at least changed it up. In painting the sunroom I discovered that there used to be a door into the dining room. It seems that the sunroom might have originally been open to the outside and was enclosed and then the door to the dining room covered and the door to the living room expanded. Or something. God knows. There were a couple of mysteries, I have stucco on the inside of the wall of the living room (covered now with drywall) and they chose to use scrap lumber for the framing. And when I say scrap, I mean they rummaged around in some scrap heap and then cobbled the frame together out of their discoveries. Really? I re-framed the whole doorway with 2x6 lumber WAY over-built. It cost me a whopping $36. Again I ask, really? Whenever they framed that door originally, I can guarantee the 2x4 wood that they used would not have cost more than $20. Stupid.
As you can see evidenced in the image below, they didn't just frame up the doorway with scrap they also built it out a bit to make it so the drywall was flush with the interior walls. The way they did that is lame as well, it would have been easier to simply build the frame mostly flush (accounting for drywall) in the first place instead of having to "shim" it out.
(as always, click to embiggen)

If you can't quite make out the bits check out the image below for a clearer picture.

Once I tore into the wall and got the whole frame removed (doors and windows above) I noticed some disturbing stuff, a good (or bad) amount of water damage- gonna have to figure out where the leak is, and some mold. GAH.

When I started to tear off the molding and casing some of the paint went with it. In HUGE pieces as you can see to the right of the doorway below. sigh. While I can frame and do nifty stuff like that I cannot drywall though I'd like to learn. But at this point it wasn't in the budget and I was worried about bringing in a "professional". For 1, I'm sure they would have told me a whole lot more was wrong and I honestly didn't want to know. And 2, it would have cost a lot I'm sure, and 3. I would have had to wait for their schedule. So I did what the PODAs did and just pretended the problem wasn't there. Sort of. I am aware of it and I hope to correct it once my skills are where they need to be.
All the framing I put up was simply in the doorway and it isn't load bearing, so I'm not too concerned, and the way I put it up I can easily pull it back down when I know how to fix the drywall. So for now, (could be decades let's be honest, I am my father's son) this will suffice.
In the image below you can see how the opening looks.

I had to narrow down the opening as the doors that were there before were 6' wide. The doors I am replacing them with are barely 5' but they are 8' tall which is why I had to tear everything out.

I chose to orient the doors all the way to the right (so the window AC can still blow into the living room to assist in cooling) so I had to make up the width on the left. I really had to think about this one for a bit as to how to cover the hole. Again, I don't drywall. So, I latched on the idea of making this wall a feature and tie in the stainless steel I used above the fireplace. Once I figure that out, it was on like donkey kong.

I had a hell of a time trying to find some barn door hardware that I could afford. The sleek modern stuff I wanted was $2000! WHAT?!

Lowe's and Home Depot were busts, but I did a search (thanks Google) and guess what? ACE Hardware to the rescue. So $150 odd bucks later I had hardware for me doors!

As for the doors, fantastic deal I happened to locate at the local ReStore (Habitat for Humanity), I had been looking for some time for some doors that would work and I happened to see them and thought they'd be perfect. Nice wood doors full panel and quite sleek and contemporary. They were raw and unfinished which suited me fine. Figured they'd be costly, but oh no, turns out the guy there wasn't supposed to accept them and he quoted us $20. For both! Tanya insisted on buying them for me to repay me for helping her with her water situation and I strapped em to the top o' me jeep and took em home. Where they sat for months.

The image below is the trial fit of the hardware and doors. I liked it immediately! The other doors swung out into the room and with the new couch just made the room seem really confined and much smaller than it was.
So the doors fit and all was well with the world. I found some stainless steel flashing at Home Depot (not where I got the stuff for the fireplace- this is important), and had to buy a 50' roll. Holy god! I only needed 16' but I was too lazy to run across town to Lowe's. I should have. This flashing was crap. Scraped up and was no where near as shiny and sleek looking. Of the 50' I was just able to pull out about 20' that wasn't marred or otherwise unattractive. Then came the hard part.

I had decided to wrap some 2x10s that I got to help me cover the hole on the left and then match the look on the right (and frankly help cover where the drywall was damaged from the water and the paint peeling off). Bending aluminum flashing did not turn out as easy as I thought it would. sigh. I was a DIY version of the keystone cops. So many things went wrong I can't even number them all. Suffice it to say it was a travesty. As you can see from the image below, trying to bend it with my fingers along a straight edge a little at a time was not good. Buckling and denting and crooked edges do not a pretty wrap make. sigh.

I soldiered on and kept hoping for the best but the minute I put them up and trimmed around them I knew it wasn't going to work. They looked just fine with the doors open (and let's be honest most of the time they would be), but once you closed them. GAH!
Buckle city. Just horrendous.

So I yanked them down and went on a quest for what I could do instead. Well I went to my trusted Lowe's and found some narrower flashing that was 25' in length and much cheaper and of much better quality. I didn't bend it around the posts instead I got some aluminum L channel and used that to frame them and I think it turned out marvelously! So much happier!

As you can see from the pics below I think it turned out really well. Maybe not perfect, but I am rarely completely satisfied with my projects since I can see all the flaws.

So ultimately, this is the run down: I ran the flashing to the ceiling, not certain I am going to keep it like that I do have an old framed photograph that was my father's that I might put up above the window to see how that looks, but I might just bring them down to the top of the window. I grabbed my drill and wire brush and scuffed up the track for the doors, thought that looked cool. I thought about doing it to the flashing (looks really nifty) but I didn't since then it wouldn't match the flashing above the fireplace. Then I located a piece of glass to use as a transom above the doors. $3 ReStore. So for cost I am into it $150 for the track and wheels, $20 for the doors, $3 for the window, $41 for the crap flashing, $23 for the good stuff, $36 for the framing lumber, roughly $25 for the trim, $14 for the handles, and $14 for the metal pieces I had to use to cover the old doorknob holes. Total price $326 oh and $24 for the paint but I'll be using that all around the house so I didn't figure that in. If you take off the doors, since I didn't pay for them, and if I could pretend the first flashing never happened, I almost got it done for less than $300. I feel pretty good about that. Time invested: 3 weekends, about 60 hours.

The results below, comments?
Open.
Closed. I will be rearranging where I put the shelves, the doors are really pretty and I'd like them to be seen. :o)

Future bits to be done: I'd like to put in glass, preferably some frosted stuff or something so we can get the light into the room even with them closed (the sunroom gets a little cooler in the winter) and then I need to finish the opposite side. Other than that, for the time being, I am mostly done. lol