We have a similar set up and bought Pella outward opening French doors. The right one stays closed all year, except for bringing the Christmas tree in. I really like the fact that the doors open outward. On the other hand I just saw some wooden sliders that looked good and seemed to be an improvement over the old sliders. I think they were Anderson

1500 should get you a good slider even with the 365 glass but without upgrades like fancy hardware/external lock/ or grills in the glass/etc.....price out both doors at your lumber yard that does doors/windows ....they will computerize and print the quote.....work with your GC-he may be able to get the pricing lowered.....but get it on paper with line items-because his vendor supplier may be someone else-but they can work off what you produce and it will show them the features you want.[be careful and double check they put in all the features ]

I like my Anderson 400 series patio doors and I think it was about $1500 before some upgrades (grills, hardware). Good quality door; however, the screen door is crap. I find my kids tend to open door and run out. I often have to remind them to close the door.

I am finding window treatments to be a problem. I as thinking of getting a woven wood vertical, but its almost as expensive as the door. Pier Onehas woven wood like curtains. I might try them.

Thanks for all the comments so far and for the doors that you've used and liked, its extremely helpful.

Dilly ny - is yours a slider or hinged?

Herb, what features should I be most concerned with getting?

EAM, $1500 does not have to include install, my GC can do it as part of the project.

Right now I'm mainly trying to decide IF I should do a hinged door, or stick to a slider, based on the room configuration.

I think of all the ways I could configure the door hinges, having it as I drew in above, hinged in the center & opening from the left side, would create the least problems. But, I do worry that if someone is sitting at the last seat of the peninsula, closest to wall, they'd have to move for someone to open the door. There's just under 13" of wall between counter edge & start of door trim.

I could hinge it on the left, with doorknob in the center. That makes me worry the door could slam into the peninsula counter/stools if opened too fast.

I feel its ideal to go with a slider, but wonder if I could live with the tight configurations of the door opening to avoid the slider & get the look of a French door.

Do you live in a cold climate? Do you use this door after the snow flies?

We have a fiberglass sliding door to our deck, which replaced a cheap POS hinged door. I love the look and feel, and it's terrific in the spring/summer/fall, but when there's snow on the deck, it's very difficult to get in and out without snow getting in the track and freezing, so the door doesn't close all the way. Our grill is on the deck, so we do use it in the winter.

I think we could get a better seal if we had a hinged door - but we're so happy with it in every other way that we'll live with the snow issue. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have gone with hinged - just much higher quality than the one that came with the house.

the features-for a sliding door are various-screen upgrade-attention to the ball bearing or slide mechanism along the bottom sill.....French wood or narrow frame which is the difference between opening up for the view outside[or not]...material such as high quality vinyl/fiberglass or factory applied finish on fiberglass or wood or YOU stain or top coat....species of wood you might like....the glass itself-attention to light filtering/insulating characteristics....tempered is standard but hurricane or laminated and now "soundglass"if you lived near highway/airport/busy roads/coastal area/etc.. -then there's the hardware upgrade and multiple lock point positions and external lock? .....Go and get with a salesman of Andersen/jeldWen or whatever is in your area for a regional product and examine one time visit in the showroom at least--open/close/play with it-etc,...... French doors-dunno-some things might be similar like material and glass upgrades....this door is in the center of your space....a feature packed door can be really nice and give an upgrade to the space....budget may or maynot allow all the bells and whistles-but go and look-something about the door may tie in with your cabinet/wood in the kitchen[or not]-----default to white vinyl perchance...oh my-but high end white vinyl door-can work nicely. If it were me, the window has to come out,right?-can you plywood it up and do more in the kitchen so you get a feel of what you think, since there was never a door there.....it's hard.

If your kitchen is tight, keep the sliders!!!! We had to replace our doors and went with another French door set-up (one stationary) because I so preferred the look. We couldn't opt for a door that opens out because snow in winter would render it non-functional, so the door opens in. It is a pain in the neck --- always have to be careful not to bump the chairs when opening. I don't like the base of sliders - they collect dirt and dust and generally aren't very attractive. Even so - I wish I would have gone with one... I'm a little tired of having to scoot chairs out of the way just so we can let the dog in and out.

As long as you have a big enough landing go with an outswing French door. Not only will you be able to use either side it is a Godsend when moving large pieces of furniture and it takes zero interior space to pull it off. I saw another post here about out swing not being safe because of hinges outside but another poster linked a great website proving it's actually safer as it is virtually impossible to kick in an out swing door and the new hinge sets are tamper proof. Also during high winds an inswing door will blow in with direct force winds at 100 mph. An outswing door can withstand the same direct force wind.

My only concern was wether we could easily open the door with snow on our deck, amazingly enough it was zero problem.

We will be replacing our breakfast area slider with an outswing French door in the next year or so.

Great topic! I have slider (with 2 fixed windows on either side) that we've considered swapping for doors that swing outwards. A couple of things we've been thinking about is whether there's any difference in ease of opening a swinging door vs sliding door when hands are full. Also, ours currently has a screen that we can slide across to have the door open but allow some air flow. I imagine you can't do that with swinging doors? It seems like an outward (vs inward) swinging door can probably accommodate any of the same window treatments a slider can. Also, are the new sliders better at not having the track gum up and become difficult to slide? I regularly have to clean mine out and then try to lubricate. (Maybe I'm using the wrong product.)

homebuyer23, you might also post your question over on the Windows forum, I think they're also very knowledgeable about patio doors. Good luck!