Hi Mandy, thanks for taking the trouble to respond and for the photo. Love your garden, great that you can enjoy it so much. I think we're now fairly set on going for a sliding patio door, for the very reasons that you mention, that is the uninterrupted view without too many profiles in the way. We've been looking again today and saw a lovely one. We had a patio door in our previous property over twenty years ago but from what I saw today they're much nicer now. We already have a couple of French windows in other rooms but want the new kitchen to be more contemporary. The one we saw this afternoon was at a company called Clearview. The salesman assured us that their doors are the most secure (not sure if this is just a sales ploy or not). Either way I quite like the clear look of the sliding patio door so will have a good look around at other companies before we finally decide where to buy. Such a relief that one more decision has been made. Last week's trauma was finding a good brick match for the extension. Thanks again. So grateful for everyone's input here on Houzz.

Hi Kelly, I see that you have not had a reply to your question. So I would like to help, New bi-fold doors and sliding doors have an excellent thermal value. Doors can be made of multiple materials but the best in look, durability is alimininum, with aluminium and double glazed glass zed glass units you will be more than comfortable in the summer and the winter. If you are concerned about the heat coming into the room, for example, if you are south facing, we have a product called thermal glass. We use thermal glass on our roof lights; it is a treated glass that has a tint and reflects heat, the double glazed units stop heat from escaping. I have attached a few pictures of our skylight showing the thermal glass and an example of large skylights and large bifolds, honestly you will not be worried at all with large amounts glass these thermal values. We are more than able to assist you if you still require product advice. Thank you.

We decided on a sliding door ( 1 fixed panel plus one sliding) for our 4.2m wide opening in our soon to be built house. This worked for us as we didn't want too much frame to block our view. I will have a table to be positioned fairly near the fixed panel. Most of all it was because I could control our dog going in and out by varying the opening...he likes to sit by our present sliding door and put his look out thru the gap and look out! Make sure you get a handle/locking system that's robust, some of the ones I looked at seemed really fiddly and a bit fragile for a triple glazed 2m wide door that's used a lot.

Ok so this may sound stupid and I have no idea if it can be achieved, I am sure a lot of tradesmen on here would laugh but I’m trying to think outside of the box for a shoestring budget. So I’m a major fan of ikea hacks, you can customise furniture for so little money and you really can be quite creative. As for faking Crittall Windows........ providing this is for internal aesthetics only I would love someone to experiment with this idea in a man cave. Use the black powder coated aluminium pax wardrobe frame from ikea and get a glazier to cut the glass to required size using the ikea inserts as a template. Obviously your door widths would have to be increased but this could work against stud partitions in large apartments to separate areas of space maybe? U can all laugh at me now!