Have you got French doors?

[Mammonite]

We are having French doors put in the back of our kitchen as part of a refurb. The opening is six feet wide. This will leave a long room with a window at the front at one end and the French doors at the back. They won't be the main back door of the house.

Silly question but if you have this kind of setup, what do you do when you want to open a window (e.g. warm day, burnt toast, just want to freshen house up) - do you have to open the whole door? I was looking at a design which has a window built in beside it here I know it's no thing of beauty but it seems a lot more practical. I wonder if the two big doors option will be lovely on hot days (like, 5 per year) but a pain the rest of the time. Or are there any other ways?

I just open one of the doors.
We have windows that open at the other end of the wall but to be honest it is just so much easier to open the door.

We just open one door a bit as well. One will be the primary opener and the other will stay locked til you specifically open it. It is lovely to have the whole thing open but it really doesn't happen that often.

Thanks! Over-worrying again. I guess it will be nice to have the door open onto the garden a bit more often.

Make sure you ask the builder to fit stays to the wall on the outside so you can hook them open...if you have another window open in the house the trhough draft will often cause them to slam shut.

Could you get a set that has a wide but shallow window above it, across the 2 doors, that you can open seperately? Our old Victorian house had this.

Thanks NNN. Since the lintel isn't there yet we could probably do that although it would be a bit tight with our ceilings (cottage).

I am wavering towards the cheapest set of 3-fold sliding doors I can find so the opening door is only 2-feet wide, I can see it might not be that big a deal having the door open a little.

We just open a door, it much more fresh air in much more quickly, so you don't need it open for long anyway. You don't have to open it fully either, ours is usually wedged open with a shoe.

Bear in mind that if you go with 3 fold sliding doors you're going to have a 3rd more plastic, which means a 3rd less light.

I originally liked the idea of bi-fold doors with 4 panes of glass, several people quoted me for that, and eventually a nice man pointed out if we did that how little glass, therefore how little light, there would actually be. His design of 2 doors was also much cheaper.

I know, I know.
DH has pointed out you can buy a cabin hook for 99p from a hardware shop to latch the door open a couple of inches!

We have French doors but only one door opens. the other is fixed. we have three sets in this house. they are so much nicer than a sliding glass door, which I've had in every house the last 40 years.