Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. The reason I am hesitant to go the permanent route was it is so permanent. And if we don't like how it turned out, that's an expensive mistake. The reason I am hesitant on film is because I'm not sure how it holds up from a quality perspective. Oaktown: Wow, that's cool film. I wonder if it works? Very interesting. Virgil: We have tried pinging the architect on it. He hasn't responded to our emails. I wouldn't mind him being more engaged on the issue, but maybe he thinks it is too small an issue to get involved? I imagine if he did weigh in, he would say to just leave it all plain glass (no obscure). I will try to give him a call and ask about it. I get the impression that he thinks we over-think things.

Hi Judy, Sorry for the delayed response, I was out of town. I live in CA. The shipping PDC uses is FedEx Ground regardless of where in the country you are located. The doors I ordered were packaged in a custom sized and built wooden crate with sufficient dunnage to ensure the doors arrive undamaged. I don't think there is any issue just because you are in PA, As to the dimensional info you are receiving. A 60" wide pivot door with a 12" from door edge pivot location needs approximately a 63" rough opening to achieve a 60" finish opening (i.e. the door will be 60" wide, but the casing will add approximately 3/4" each side, but you also need room for shims, etc. As for the distance of the pivot point to the door edge, you will see that PDC will allow a variety of pivot placement options: (from their website) The pivot placement is the distance the pivot pin will be placed away from the vertical edge of the rough opening. Generally speaking, we suggest placing the pivot over one quarter of the distance of the door width. We find that this presents a solid aesthetic for most door dimensions. See table below for suggested pivot placements. If your rough opening is 48” and you choose a 9” pivot placement, the door will roughly have a 37” pass through opening. You want to ensure you leave at least a 36” opening. See diagram for details or contact us for clarification. As stated above, if you only had room for a 42" wide door, 1/4 of that is 10.5", therefore the egress would actually only be 31" which is too narrow. HOWEVER, with only a 42" wide door, PDC will allow a 4" pivot placement, resulting in a 37" opening. I think it best that you call PDC or else configure the door you think you want on their configuration page. It won't let you order a door that won't actually work and function well. However, I would have your architect review to insure that the door you choose is proportionally correct and aesthetically pleasing. Be advised that PDC is a custom pivot door builder, so they can build to any width and height you specify. Attached is a picture from the inside of the exterior door "Sydney in white oak" from when it was just installed in our house (sorry, only photo I had on my phone; door had yet to be clear stained and sealed). The second picture is of the exterior of the house; you can see the exterior of the entry door. (The white oak shutters you see are part of an outside room, and pivot as well, but from the center - to control light and airflow in the outside room. Continued best on your project! JE

Find a work person who can make a simple storage/window bench for you exactly to your specs. Consider shelves underneath the bench like this one, which has two levels of shelving. Or a lidded hinged bench. You might be able to spec a bench that aligns with outdoor chaise cushions, so you don't have to get an upholstered cushion made. Something with a drawer for each person with lovely cushion on top that coordinates with dining room. Drawers: Deep bench with baskets underneath for each person. Put a great indoor-outdoor rug in front of it to catch the outdoor grit. Etsy has many woodworkers who make benches on spec and ship them unassembled. This isn't from Etsy, but they do offer some styles like this. The trick is training the household to take shoes off on indoor-outdoor rug and walk shoes over to their bin/basket/drawer.

@just_janni Hopefully my design team can answer that question for me...I'm really not very good with the aesthetic stuff. But maybe it would look OK full height? I know you said it would look ridiculous, and you're probably right. Otherwise, maybe you do a 3' or so tube centered at standard doorknob height? Or even your idea of 6-7' centered at door knob height sounds like it would look OK, too. I will need to look for pictures. I do think that the hardware will blend in a bit because of the enormous scale of the door. And, if you have the handle be the same color as the frame, it will probably blend in pretty well (I think).