Top of the morning—or afternoon, or whenever you’re reading this!
If you’ve been scrolling through my page, you may have come across a few doors that resemble this one. The metal grill design, the 8-foot tall double door setup, and the general layout aren’t new ideas. But what is interesting about this particular door is how it reflects the evolution of our external grill mounting system.
From Sandwiched Metal to Externally Mounted Grills
In the early days, metal grills were always sandwiched between two panes of glass. That approach gave us a clean look, but limited us in terms of depth, design, and material options. Over time, as we experimented and refined our techniques, we landed on the right coating process that made external mounting viable—without worrying about rust or corrosion.
Inspired by traditional wood doors that often feature externally mounted ironwork, we began adapting the approach to modern fiberglass and steel doors as well.
The initial solution involved metal legs or standoffs mounted into the door itself. But this came with a challenge: the structural frame inside fiberglass and steel doors typically runs around the perimeter, making it hard to anchor anything precisely where we needed.
External Grill Mounting System v2.0
Enter the new version of our mounting method. Instead of relying on the door’s internal structure, we now anchor the metal grill directly into the inner portion of the glass frame molding. The “meat” of the glass surround gives us more flexibility and strength, and avoids interfering with the structural limits of the slab itself.
This approach has a big advantage: it reduces the projection of the grill, allowing us to run pull bars over it without interference. Which brings us to this door—a great example of everything coming together.
This setup features:
Offset pull bar hardware
Multipoint lock system
Euro-style lock cylinder
And of course, the new flush-mounted external grill
Solving the Transom Problem Creatively
Another fun part of this project? The client wanted full-height doors but didn’t want to use a transom window. We had maxed out the available height, so we needed a workaround.
Our solution was to use a composite filler piece on the exterior and pair it with an oversized interior trim package. That small design decision let us fill in the extra few inches without compromising on visual continuity. Clean, simple, and totally integrated.
Final Thoughts
It’s always exciting when form and function evolve together. This door doesn’t just look good—it shows off how far we’ve come in refining our methods, particularly when it comes to working with metal accents on fiberglass and steel doors. And more importantly, it opens the door (literally) to new design possibilities.