This post is sponsored by Pella.

Way back in September, we dreamed up these doors. Working with an architectural draftsman for the first time, we imagined the weird enclosed porch space on our first floor to be an elegant but casual dining room, one with a table long enough to feed both of our families and doors leading out to the patio.

Here’s the before:

We installed five sets of the Pella Architect Series Double Inswing Patio Doors with a black EnduraClad wood finish on the exterior and a black stain interior. We went with the Modern Collection hardware: the Spiere hinged patio door handle in polished nickel. We kept the original arched door on the far end, painting it black and switching out the hardware to match the others.

There were two sets of sliding doors in here, and two sets of double doors. There were stony columns. In short — it had so much potential, and this room was actually a big selling point in buying our house.

We have installed Pella windows in the past. No strangers to adding a window where there was not, we’ve found that Pella gives us the best bang for our buck. They’re good quality, custom-designed, long-lasting — and they look great.

We also *love* the look of exterior-facing doors in black. It frames the view of the outside like a gorgeous piece of art. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Black is the new black.

If you’re thinking of tackling a project like this, here’s what you need to know:

• How thick is your outside wall?
• The opening of the door without the jamb.
• Do you want the doors inswinging or outswinging. (Ours are inswinging due to the massive amounts of snow we get piled up in the winters.)
• If you are doing inswinging, how far in will the doors come? French doors cut into the dining room half the width which still leaves a lot of walk-way for lots of people.
• A Pella rep can assist you with finish options, price points and answer A LOT of questions.
• You get to pick your mullions (the grid on your windows). We really wanted a modern traditional look so decided on an elongated rectangular look.

The back of our house is still very much under construction–and even more so now (we’ll get into that next week), but it is looking a lot more streamlined already.

We get asked a lot of questions about why doors instead of windows? We really wanted to flood the room with natural light, but why not make that light multi-functional — and get outside while we’re at it? Plus, it just fit our traditional aesthetic a little more.  Now, we’re dreaming of long summer nights…our friends and family are wandering in and out of the dining room, onto the patio where Chris is grilling. The grownups all sit down to dinner, and maybe the kids are still playing outside. …Can you see it?

And to answer the other question we always get, we’ve settled in to opening just one door on the daily so it’s not a big deal to lock that every night. Haha.