French door - stopping the cold cheaply

[Dontwanttobefatanymore]

We’ve had a couple of French doors put in our kitchen and have noticed since the weather has changed just how cold it is in that room.
Problem is we have very little money to get fitted blinds for them at the moment. Is there any cheaper ways I can keep the room warm until I have my lottery win next year?

I have north facing French doors in my living room plus hard floors, it can get pretty cold even with the curtains drawn. I have just added a ceiling rail (within the recess) and hung opaque voiles.

I also made two basic, extra long, draft excluders that fit the doors and the difference is amazing!

The rails & voiles were from ikea and cost about £40 in total.

Bubblewrap

Curtains are better insulators than blinds. I noticed how cold it was when I opened the curtains this morning. Charity shops sell curtains. They may not be to your taste but will be a cheap option until you can afford something better.

I got some cheap sale curtains in B&Q and put them up with a plastic rail. The curtains stay shut for the winter!!

This. It is incredibly insulating.

I bought off-the-peg, full-height thermal curtains in the sale and added an additional thermal liner that you attach using curtain hooks. Hung them over all external doors the landing window and our large, living room bay window and it made a massive difference to the internal temperature.

We have an old, badly fitted, wooden, half-glazed front door. It already had a letterbox brush and one on the bottom of the door, plus that insulating tape around the edge, but the hall used to be freezing all winter, despite having a large double radiator. After hanging the new curtains and liners and adding an old fashioned draft excluder along the bottom, it’s much better. I wouldn’t call it toasty, but definitely ambient enough that we no longer feel the need to add a layer and make a dash for it when we need to go through there.

Back door is fully single-glazed, so the rear lobby area was literally like a fridge all winter before and that’s also so much better now we have a curtain and liner up.

Can’t wait for our renovation/building work to be done this year to fix the problems at source!

I hadn’t considered curtains with them being in the kitchen and worried about grease and smells but they would make it a lot warmer.
I wonder if I could get machine washable ones and just wash them often? Thanks

All my curtains are machine washable. Honestly, the difference having curtains makes to the temperature is astonishing.
Also, having something in a light colour covering the window reflects the light back into the room and makes it feel brighter.

Definitely get a draught excluder. If you need a custom size look on Etsy. Make sure it's a weighted one. It's made a huge difference to ours.

My gran had big thick velvet curtains over her back door. Can't get better to stop draughts.

What do you do with it?

OP I got about 5 pairs of very nice (to my eye) thermal curtains in the sale at Dunelm last year for £10-20/pair. They were only in-store, not online, and I did have to rummage through all their clearance stuff for a good hour to get the right sizes/colours, but they had LOADS. I'm sure you could find something to your taste.