sidelights and entry doors

I would like to replace my double entry doors with a single door and 2 sidelights. A man at the hardware store told my husband that if our home is brick, it would never work?? does he know what he's talking about?
thanks
Jenn

 

Welcome to the forums Jenn

As long as the rough opening is the same it shouldn't make a difference.

 

Just center the door in the existing opening, and buy properly sized side lights and trim accordingly. The brick mold will appropriately go against your brick veneer just like your double doors do now.

 

What you suggest sounds reasonable, but careful measurements are required to find a door that fits without modifying the opening. It is fairly easy to make the opening smaller by a little, but making it larger is a major job. Width is usually the key factor, but an older opening could be lower than most stock doors.

 

Thanks ya'll saved the day!!

 

The fact that it's brick makes no difference. Any door can be replaced. You probably will have size issues though. Your double door is probably either two 32" doors or 36" doors, which works out to a brick opening size of 68" or 76" (give or take 1/2"). A standard 36" door with 14" sidelites (the widest that most sidelites are) is usually a brick opening width of 71-72" (when you include the frame and the brickmould). To make up for the difference, you either need to fill in (use wider trim), or get a custom width ($$$), or (my favorite) have a space of about 2" between each sidelite and the door. This is called a reinforcement mull. Any of those methods will do the trick!