French Doors

A pair of glazed doors, detailed to the period

French doors are a pair of glazed doors meeting in the middle, hinged at the jambs and closing against a rebated meeting stile. On a period property the glazing is divided by bars matched to the house — slim, moulded, and proportioned to the elevation — so the doors read as part of the architecture rather than as a patio fitting. The sections are kept slender, the timber stable, and the glazing specified to the building, including slim-profile double glazing where performance is needed without coarsening the bars.

Where they suit, and how they close

French doors suit rear and garden elevations, garden rooms, and kitchens — openings where a generous but architecturally quiet glazed door is wanted. They are weathered at the threshold and the meeting stile, and closed with period-appropriate ironmongery such as espagnolette or cremone bolts that secure the doors top and bottom. Where a wider opening is wanted, they sit naturally alongside bi-fold doors as the more traditional choice.

Steel-look French doors, and where they belong

Not every pair of French doors wants period glazing bars. On a contemporary extension, a barn conversion, or a rear elevation with no historic sightline to protect, the same pair of doors can be drawn in a steel-look register instead — slim black sections, a square glazing grid, no mouldings. Crittall-style, as most people call it. They are still timber, usually Accoya, because it holds a painted finish and stays straight in sections that slim.

The building decides, not the fashion. On a listed front elevation a steel-look door is rarely the right answer; on the back of the same house, where the kitchen opens to the garden, it often is. Where a whole elevation is going that way rather than one pair of doors, that is the Urban Designed collection — see Industrial Door Sets.