Hi AnnieDeighnaugh, thanks for the links, will check them out. Hi lepages, thanks, I am thinking the roman shades are a good choice for the french door. Hi sweet-tea, thanks for the links, the roman shades look great. Hi sasafras, thanks I'd like to leave them blank but to conserve energy I'd like to add something to save on heat loss in winter and to block the direct sunlight in the window which faces west, the french door faces south but there is a covered porch there and we are way up on a hill so I doubt anyone can see in unless they have a telescope, lol

Softlite Gorell is a good product, but I don't believe that they are available in CA, and neither are one or two others on that list. Milgard is however, and is fairly solid.

you should post on the windows forum. There are much better vinyl choices than ones from HD. The pros on that forum like Okna and Sunrise among others. I have Sunrise vinyl patio door and windows and am very pleased with them.

Thanks everyone! Husband was at the house today during a thunderstorm - the only leak/water issue in the entire house was the master bedroom French doors, which were actually leaking at the bottom left edge of the frame. This is after tile demo, so perhaps the tile had been holding that water back from actually leaking onto the floor inside, but I bet it was still getting into the frame to some degree. We had already noted what looked like wear or water damage at the bottom of that door, so now we’ve confirmed the issue, and I’m convinced we do need to replace them. I think the safe bet would be to get wood or composite doors that can be painted - that way if it looks weird one way or the other we could always switch. I’ve also heard that French doors are considered more premium. But currently the house is a mishmash of styles, and we’re trying to take everything in a clean, bright, midcentury modern-inspired direction. It seems like sliding glass doors would be a better fit? Full lite French doors would be an improvement over these bulky 12 lite ones, but still not as much light as sliding ones, and I’m not sure they’d read MCM.