First and foremost, never plan a do-it-yourself home improvement project the week before inviting your family over for Thanksgiving Dinner.  Secondly, never-ever skimp on quality products.  I’ll explain why later, but first let me tell you how our home improvement project ended in a disaster.

Last November, I read a very interesting home improvement article in a popular home decorating magazine.  A famous architect from New York did a creative little trick to make his bedroom appear larger. He replaced a wood frame door with a sliding glass door that connected his bedroom and bathroom.  So, my husband and I had a brilliant idea …we thought it would be nice to install a sliding glass door in our dining room which connects to our kitchen. Huge mistake.

Surprisingly, it looked very attractive.  It even made our dining room area appear a little larger minus the wooden swing door that once connected the two rooms.  However, it would have been a lot more attractive if we were actually able to open the door.  So, if we wanted to get into the dining room, we would have to go outside, walk around to the side of the house and climb in through the window.  Let’s just say that we had to eat our meals in the kitchen foyer for a couple of days.

Finally, we were able to open the sliding glass door…But when my husband closed the door, it got stuck again.  That’s when I convinced my husband to have our neighbor, a professional carpenter, to take a look at it.  Unfortunately, our neighbor was out of town and would not be back until the Friday after Thanksgiving.

When my husband was finally able to open the door, 3 hours later, we both decided not to close it until our neighbor came over to fix it.   

Two days later, on Thanksgiving Day, our guests arrived at the house. Everything went along smoothly until my favorite cousin wanted to see how the sliding glass door would look closed.  Before I could yell don’t close it, she slammed the door shut.  I tried opening the door but it wouldn’t budge.  Basically, if anyone wanted to eat turkey, they would have to go outside and climb in through the window. Embarrassing!

My pre-holiday home improvement disaster is the reason why you do not want to start a project at the last minute, especially if you’re not a professional.  As I mentioned earlier, you should avoid skimping on quality products at all cost because it will cost you in the long run.

Here are helpful tips to remember before installing a sliding glass door:

• If you are using a sliding glass door to connect to an outdoor deck or your back yard, using cheap chalking could actually cause leaks.
• Make sure that you take good measurements according to the manufactures instructions.
• Always remember, openings have to be at least a quarter to a half inch larger on the sides and the top of your door to for shimming.