Try google images. You can find a photo of anything there.

lavender lass, I have one of those houses. It was built in about 1903-1906 (unsure) and originally had a back porch that was accessible through the kitchen, the back hall and through french doors from the dining room.

Sometime in the 1940's the porch was enclosed and the door from the kitchen was closed off. About 5 years ago new vinyl (ugly) windows were installed in the sun room where the cool old wooden ones once were.

I love the combination of these 2 rooms. When we have dinner parties, and the weather is pleasant, we can open the sun room windows and enjoy the breeze, and the sounds of the pond in the back yard. It also makes the dining room feel far far larger (at only 13 x 18, its not a huge room).

I have photos of the sun room in my dining room restoration blog entry in December, 2010 at http://thejoshuashivelyhouse.blogspot.com.

We finished "restoring" the sun room in April 2009, but I have no digital photos off it. But you can see the Dining room, the french doors (that I still have to finish painting) but they are hung in the before photos.

Here is a link that might be useful: the Joshua Shively House

OldHouseJim, love your dining room and the whole house shown in your albums.

And Lavender, let me point out something to you about pairs of French doors. They come in various widths. I had a pair of them, total of 4 feet width, opening from my family room onto a south-facing deck, in my MoccasinLanding cottage. I had a small round dining table sitting in front of them, until my parrot cages clamed the space. Loved the doors.

And in my stucco cottage there was a pair of them 60 inches wide between my dining room and the living room. I removed the doors to save space. However, next winter we will reinstall a pair of the doors opening the other direction, into the living room this time, so we can make that room our seldom-used guest room. The doors will become "frames" for the view through to the dining room and the similar 60 inch opening to the kitchen, as part of our kitchen redo.

I guess the woodwork for French doors is so much a part of my thinking that I cannot imagine a contractor not having a vision of it in his professional memory.

Many of the center hallway homes in the south had the entry door which opened to the center hall, and then a sitting room to one side and a dining room to the other. These were typically wide openings with gorgeous installations of French doors.

I am loving that you want this for your farmhouse. I think your family gatherings will benefit from the hospitality exuded by such a set of doors.

Jim- Thank you for the pictures...such lovely spaces! You must be very happy with your home :)

ML- French doors are so pretty and I love the way they bring so much elegance to a room. Do you have any pictures of your french doors?

In our new house, the screened porch has been enclosed, but thankfully.. one set of the doors remain! They are 4' doors off the dining room (still there) and living room (missing).

Lavender, I'll see if I can find the old photos. I sold MoccasinLanding back in May 2004, and will have to search for the printed photos from the earlier years, which were salvaged from Katrina debris in 2005.

Lavender, I found this photo in my parrot albums for 2003, because I knew I took pictures of the macaw cages in front of the doors. Also, my African gray is swinging on the pull chain for the ceiling fan (which is turned off at the wall switch to prevent accidental power-up).

This pair of doors is a total of 4 feet in width, like Tinker's doors shown above. I think at this point, the floor is painted white high gloss enamel with a 2" wide yellow border, and it held up nicely for about 2 years, even with birds pooping and dropping food on it.

I liked the 4 foot width fine, because I could open both and roll out those huge bird cages for bathing and cleaning, and the deck faced south. The doors opened into the family room, not outward. One door had the knob and the other had the top and bottom sliding bolts, plus I had a double deadbolt lock. It was an outside entry type setup, not an interior set of French doors. Going into your sun porch, you would not need the deadbolt lock.

Here is a link that might be useful: French Doors opening to raised deck.