Ladies and Gentlemen... The Doors!

Door pans in place prior to installing the door frames

For the past few days Hector the Framer and the rest of the guys have been working on the frames for the rear sliding doors. We had to order door pans and wait for those to be delivered before work could even start.

A door frame is assembled in the second bedroom

Once the door pans were in place, the frames could be assembled, hopefully with everything connected correctly.

All of the frames in place, awaiting the doors

Then the frames were lifted into place. They have no nail fins, just what are called block frames, which nail directly onto the wood opening. Where the doors meet the steel posts there are wood shims, to provide thermal breaks between metal surfaces.

The assembly and installation of the sliding doors was certainly more complicated than it looked, and much more complicated than I imagined it would be. Grace Vycor weatherproofing had to be in place before anything else could be done.

After all of the frames were secured and made plumb and level, pieces of Kynar trim were installed above the door headers.

Finally, on the foggiest day I've seen in Pacifica thus far, the massive and incredibly heavy doors were carefully lifted onto their rails. I know they were incredibly heavy; I assume they were lifted carefully, although I wasn't there to witness it. Thanks to the douchebag who rear-ended my Prius with his gigantic, gleaming new Cadillac Escalade on Sunday, I spent the morning at the body shop.

The anodized aluminum Jeld-Wen Premium Series doors do look quite magnificent, and they have a seriously solid and meaty feel to them. We'll see over the coming years how effectively the LoE 366 glass protects the house and furnishings from the harsh rays of the sun.

Silver Kynar steel panels will provide a shiny finish for the house

With the rear sliding doors done (we still have to install the front sliding door and the pair of sliders in the basement - maybe tomorrow?), the guys moved on to the Kynar siding, and as with everything else, it seems, progress was frustratingly awkward and slow.

Eventually Jose was able to get the first silver panel to slide down the cleats and clip into the bottom trim, but not without making a cut here and a tweak there, and expending a considerable amount of energy. He was adding the second panel when I left for the day;  tomorrow it's my fervent hope and expectation that Jose and Hector will be able to fly through the remaining rear panels, and move on to the front of the house.

Jose adds a flat Kynar steel panel to the rear face of the house