Nothing Is More French Than French Doors
Hubby put the door hardware on for the three western-facing french doors last night. I was the assistant standing by with the washers and screws and toothpicks. Yes, toothpicks!! Toothpicks are great to fill up a hole that was accidentally drilled too big. A very handy tip I picked up from observing the installers from Alby Turner & Son.
It has been hard work getting here with the incredible screw-ups by Hatwell Online Painting. Hubby had to sand every single door back to bare timber to remove all traces of the paint that was painted on with the incorrect colour and paint type. That's 10 doors in total. Each door took approximately 4 hours for both sides. And then there was the gap-filling for all the joints in the beads. Then two coats of Zinsser stain-blocking primer (which is incredibly annoying and 'sticky' to paint with), and two coats of enamel paint. The glass that was treated with Comfort Plus was very tricky to 'cut-in' as we cannot scrape excess paint off as it will damage the Comfort Plus film. Hubby took 4 weeks of annual leave and stayed home the entire time to sand the doors, and we painted together as a team on all our days off together, starting at 6 in the morning sometimes to avoid the sun. It took us over 6 weeks to finish painting these doors. It has been a long and painful road but the result is so amazing that we would do it all over again if we had to. We are totally in love with these doors and they look so great with the door hardware finally on.
The door handles are solid-cast brass made in France, salvaged from a 'mas' in Provence. They have aged to a lovely patina and are graceful with their curves in the Louis XV style. We were amazingly lucky to have been able to find 5 matching pairs. The door bolts are from Domino Brass. We were in love with some door bolts we are in the Brionne catalogue but could not justify the cost for 5 sets of bolts. The Domino bolts are not as ornate as the Brionne ones but I think they still complement the door handles beautifully.
