Automated Doors Create Seamless Indoor/Outdoor Living

A forever home. It’s every builder’s dream to work on — and a lot of pressure. Creating custom living spaces is exactly what A Finer Touch Construction, an award-winning design-build general contractor, specializes in. Founder and president of AFT Construction, Brad Leavitt, has decades of industry experience in both commercial and residential builds, and has built the company from the ground up. Leavitt and AFT Construction deliver stunning luxury builds for their clients and thought leadership to their peers.

The clients love cooking and entertaining and wanted the home to take advantage of the weather in the valley with true indoor/outdoor living. The home features three separate kitchens for entertaining and an abundance of outdoor entertaining space. They also opted for large windows and multi-slide and bifold patio doors to bring it all together. Years of planning went into the build, and the client trusted their architect, landscape architect, interior designer, AFT Construction and Pella to make it happen.

“It is pretty rare when you a get a client that does the whole package,” said Brad Leavitt, President at AFT Construction. This residential build relied heavily on a teamwork approach to create true indoor/outdoor living and deliver thoughtful aesthetics across the entire build. Leavitt continued, “These projects are always the best, where we are working together collaboratively.”

In this custom modern home, aesthetic is everything. Each window, door, finish, material, item of furniture — down to the home’s accessories — were thoughtfully chosen to create cohesion.

The family chose Pella Reserve – Contemporary windows and patio doors for their simple and sophisticated designs and custom configuration and automation. And they are backed by the best limited lifetime warranty for wood windows and patio doors.⁴⁷

To create true indoor/outdoor living, the great room of the home features expansive corner multi-slide patio doors. This custom, showstopping door is automated to open and close with the touch of a button, with panels pocketing neatly away into the wall. With a flush sill, the Pella Reserve – Contemporary patio door provides a seamless transition between the 18 ft. ceilings in the great room and 24 ft. ceilings on the patio door.

Above the striking corner multi-slide patio door, fixed direct set windows create a bank of units for the transom. This design element can be found other places in the residence, providing a cohesive look.

Creating a door of this magnitude with seamless transition from the great room to the patio and entertaining space was no small feat, and automating it made it even more complicated. To bring the architect and clients’ vision to life, Pella, AFT Construction and their automation vendor for the build got straight to work. Leavitt said, “We chose to work with Pella Architectural Solutions on this project because of their exceptional customer service and ability to create a unique product. We knew we could rely on the team’s expertise to help create the automated, custom multi-slide door design that we were looking for.”

After the technology and products were configured on paper, the teams worked together to build an entire mockup offsite. This included building a full size, replica wall to ensure that the automation and multi-slide patio doors would perform outstandingly for years to come.

No ounce of quality or service was spared. In constant communication, the teams complemented one another with a keen focus on attention to detail and meticulous execution. The result is nothing short of jaw dropping.