How to Screen French Doors Green and Easy

I have two sets of nice French Doors on the 2nd floor of my condo. These doors are very nice, but not having a screen door it is impossible to open them in the warmer months without getting mosquitoes and whatever other wildlife is residing outside. Since I am renting the condo I didn't want to put a whole lot of investment into making a screen for them, but I desperately wanted to allow airflow during the summer months instead of having the hot air remain trapped on the 2nd floor where I have two bedrooms. I also wanted to cut down on my electricity bill and thinking if I had a way to keep the doors open I would need to run the air conditioner all night.

My French Doors open inwards, so the screen would have to go on the outside. Since both sets of doors open onto the deck, I decided to only make a screen for one bedroom or set of doors. Note that I would not be going in and out of the door I was going to screen. The main goal was to have an outlet for hot air to escape the condo, I have a screened window in the other bedroom which would allow air to run though the 2nd floor of the condo.

There is a track in the door frame, so if I wanted to buy a screen door to go outside of the French Doors I could do it, but again I am renting and wanted to do this as cheap as possible and most importantly make it work.

I measured the frame of the door from the outside and it was roughly 6 feet wide by 7 feet long. I headed to my local Lowe's or Home Depot (don't remember which one as I go to both). I found a roll of fiberglass screen 3ft x 7ft for around $7 per roll (I bought 2). I then bought a roll of Gorilla Tape, this is heavy duty duct tape that comes in many different color (choose the color that best matches the exterior of your frame or home). I also purchased some push pins, the same kind you would use at home.  Again I did not want to make this a permanent fixture and something I could easily take down when I move out.

The last steps were laying both fiberglass screens out flat and lining up the edges. I created a seam in the middle by running a strip of Gorilla tape both over and under the middle seam of the fiberglass screen. You want to make sure that the Gorilla tape is right down the middle where you two edges of screen meet. I left about a half inch gap (where the two edges of screen meet) so that the gorilla tape would grab itself and then went over the part where the tape is over the screen itself. You want to press really hard on the tape so that it grabs the other strip under it. You can walk on it or leaving heavy books along the seam until the two pieces of tape adhere to each other.

The nice thing about the fiberglass screen is that it does not warp or stretch too much. The next step was to bring out the assembled screen outside to the exterior of the door. I hung the screen right over the frame of the French Doors and used the push pins to keep it in place. Surprisingly, the push-pins work really well in keeping the screen in place and since the screen is fiberglass it lays pretty flat against the door frame.

I then used thin strips of tape to go around the edge of the screen to ensure that bugs stay out. My screen has been exposed to high winds and still does the job. Obviously this is a temporary solution and if you own your home you may want to just make the investment and buy screen doors, but if you are renting you may want to consider making your own temporary screen for your French Doors.

1. 1 roll of Gorilla Tape
2. 2 rolls of Fiberglass Insect Screen for Screen Doors
3. Pushpins