Most Florida homes have at least one big exterior door situation. The slider out to the lanai. French doors off the master bedroom. A front door you wish you could leave open in the evening. Almost every one of those openings can have a retractable screen on it, and most homeowners don’t realize that until someone tells them.
Two questions come up over and over when we do estimates. Let’s go through them.
Should I Replace My Sliding Doors With French Doors?
This question comes up a lot during remodels around Tampa Bay. The slider that came with the house is fine, but the homeowner wants the look of French doors out to the lanai or back garden. Worth doing?
Couple of things to think about before you commit.
French doors swing. Inward or outward, they take up floor space when open. A slider gives you the full opening with no swing radius. If your living room is tight, or there’s a piece of furniture near the door, swing-open French doors might be a problem.
French doors open up the full width every time. Sliders only ever open one half. That makes French doors better for moving furniture, hosting parties where guests flow between inside and patio, or just letting in maximum airflow on a nice evening.
Look matters. French doors read as a design choice. Sliders read as functional. In a higher-end home or a remodel where curb appeal is the point, French doors are usually the winner. In a casual Florida-room setup where you just want easy access to the pool, sliders are fine.
Cost and structure. If your existing slider opening is the same width as a standard French door setup, the swap is relatively straightforward. If you need to change the rough opening, it gets more involved. That’s a conversation with your contractor before you commit.
Can French Doors Have Screens?
Yes. This is the question we hear most often and the one that surprises people most.
Phantom retractable screens for French doors work just like the doors themselves. We mount a screen on each side of the opening. They retract into their housings on the left and right when you don’t need them. When you pull them out, they meet in the middle with a magnetic latch and create a seamless screen across the whole opening.
Open the French doors, pull the screens across, and you’ve got the wide-open French door look with full bug protection. Close the screens and the French doors, and there’s basically nothing visible — the screens are tucked back in their housings, color-matched to your trim.
This is one of the best uses of retractable screens in a Florida home, honestly. French doors are gorgeous. French doors with no screens are useless half the year because you can’t open them. Add the retractable screens and you get to use them.
What About Sliders, In-Swing Doors, and Front Doors?
Same answer. Retractable Phantom screens fit just about every exterior door type we run into.
Sliding glass doors. Including the oversized ones that are basically a glass wall. We have screens that handle openings up to 15 feet wide and 12 feet high. Folding glass walls, multi-panel sliders, and stacking systems all work too.
Single in-swing front doors. Probably the most common install we do. The screen mounts to one side of the frame and pulls across when you want it. Most can be installed without removing the door from its hinges.
Out-swing doors. These take a slightly different setup, but they work fine.
Double-French doors. Covered above. Two screens, meet in the middle.
Color, Mesh, and Customization
Phantom screens for doors come in a range of colors so the housing matches your existing trim. If your trim is white, the housing is white. Dark bronze frame? Dark bronze housing. Done right, the screen is barely visible even when it’s deployed, and basically invisible when it’s retracted.
On mesh, the typical Tampa Bay homeowner picks insect mesh for door screens. Florida’s mosquitoes, no-see-ums, and love bugs are the main reason most people are installing these in the first place. Standard Phifer 18/14 mesh keeps most insects out and still lets you see through it clearly. If no-see-ums are your specific issue (more common near water in Pinellas County), Phifer 20/20 is the tighter weave that handles them.
A Few Florida-Specific Things to Know
Salt air is hard on hardware. We use Phantom because the components are rated for it and the limited lifetime warranty covers you if anything fails. Cheaper screen door systems will rust out in three or four years in Florida and you’ll be doing the install twice.
The latch stop feature is worth adding if you’ve got kids or pets, or if you just don’t love the idea of anyone being able to pull your front screen door open from the outside. It’s a small add-on that requires an extra step to open the screen, and it works both directions.
Installation usually takes a couple of hours per door. No major construction. No mess. Most of our customers are surprised at how fast it goes.
Want to See What Would Work on Your Doors?
Every door situation is a little different. Some are textbook standard installs. Some have weird trim, custom widths, or out-swing setups that need a closer look. We come out, measure the openings, and tell you exactly what’s possible.
Free in-home estimate. No subcontractors. Call 1-727-372-5900 or reach out through the contact page. We cover Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, and most of the surrounding Tampa Bay area.