A solid wall with one narrow doorway separated the living room from a home office in a DUMBO apartment. The old door came out, the wall was cut and the opening widened and framed, and three sliding glass panels went in — trimmed, caulked and painted in two days.
The home office sat behind a full wall with a single standard doorway at one end. The window is on the office side, so the living room relied on its own light and the office was cut off from the rest of the apartment.
The homeowner wanted a wide opening with sliding glass doors: open most of the time, closed when privacy is needed, and letting light through either way.
Drag the handle to compare — the same wall before the work and with the three sliding glass panels installed.
Drag the slider: the same wall. Before — one narrow doorway, with the floor already papered for the work. After — a wide cased opening with three sliding glass panels. The two photos were taken from slightly different spots in the room.
A full wall, one doorway, and the floor protected and ready for the cut.
Cutting a wall makes dust, so the first hour went into protection: paper taped over the hardwood, plastic over the furniture. Then the old door, jamb and casing were removed and the wall was cut back to turn the doorway into one wide opening.
The opening was framed and checked for square, plumb and level. A sliding door system is unforgiving — if the head is not level the panels drift, and if the sides are not plumb the gaps show — so the framing is where the time goes.
With the frame right, the track and door frame went in and the three glass panels were hung and adjusted. New casing was fitted around the opening, caulked to the wall, and painted. The room was vacuumed and the protection lifted at the end of the second day.
The wall cut back to a wide opening, then the frame and the first panels in place, still in their protective film.
Textured glass does two jobs at once. It blurs what is behind it, so the office stays private with the doors shut, and it still passes daylight from the office window into the living room. Sliding panels need no swing space, which matters in an apartment where every foot of floor is used.
The finish is what makes a new opening look original. The casing was sized to the opening, the joints were caulked, and the trim was painted, so there is no raw edge or patch line where the wall was cut.
Three sliding glass panels in a cased opening — closed for privacy, open to join the two rooms.
This project connects to door installation, drywall repair and trim painting for apartments across Brooklyn and New York City.
Often, yes. On this project a single doorway was widened into one wide opening, framed, and fitted with three sliding glass panels. Whether a particular wall can be opened depends on what is inside it and on the building's rules, so it is checked before any cutting; changes to load-bearing walls need an engineer and building approval.
This one took two days on site: protection, removing the old door, cutting and framing the opening, installing the doors, and then casing, caulk and paint.
Floors are covered with taped-down paper and furniture with plastic before cutting, and the area is vacuumed as the work goes and again at the end.
Yes. New casing was fitted around the opening, caulked and painted, so the wall and trim look finished rather than patched.
Send a few photos of the wall and the doorway, and Repair ASAP can tell you what is possible and quote the opening, the doors and the finish.