bought larger than needed doors & frames so that I could re-make them with much narrower styles for that delicate French look, a lot of experience in this field so shouldn’t be to much of a problem, picked them all up on our last visit to UK, all hardwood but not very attractive red meranti, we’re painting though so shouldn’t be a problem, hardwood bought more for its resilience to the termites than anything else, though strength is quite important when cutting them down as much as we are.
each leaf starts out looking like this, if you imagine two together, they can look quite bulky where they meet, also at the sides where they meet the uprights of the frame, the idea is to trim down as much as possible whilst retaining structural rigidity and enough wood left to fit hinges & locks too.
frame needs to be cut to size first, then doors converted to windows and sized to fit new frame
mortise machine breaks daylight again, lovely feeling it sithe its way through leaving a square hole, still amuses me to be drilling a square hole, I’m such a child 
threshold & header re-mortised to new width
uprights of frame cut off & new tenons cut
glued and screwed
ready for doors
bottom cut off one of the doors, will need to reuse the large bottom rail to complete the bottom of window
the reason being that the glazing bars are way to thin to take any kind of load so will have to be replace with bottom rail
glued & screwed, will trim afterwards when rebate is added
huge amount of timber removed, got some great long lengths of hardwood to use elsewhere though 
a before and after to give an idea, leaves a lovely delicate window
cut in hinges
offer up windows, lift to top & mark hinge points allowing for a slight drop when fitted.
rebate bottom of window to seat against water bar
very french looking
three pairs of french doors to match is next, pretty much the same process so wont bore with that, front door will be interesting though as we’ll be making it from solid oak reclaimed from one of the barns 
(my favourite work)
Gills producing some awesome eats from the fruits for her labours
Our build 