Seven Things to Think About When Choosing a Front Door

Choosing a front door that enhances the style and function of your house is not always simple. Here are some of the things that we considered when choosing a front door.

When we bought our river house four years ago, it looked like this.

Our house leans toward mid century modern, but over the past 35 years, several owners have tried to put on their own stamp and make this house something else. The traditional front door is a good example of that. The lack of balance due to a side panel on one side only bothered me also; it pushed the actual door into the corner.

When it came time to replace the door, there were a number of things we considered:

1. Respect the style of the house

For us, I was looking for mid century modern doors and did a lot of research as to what was available in that style. Have a look on Pinterest or Houzz for country or farm house doors if that is the style of your house, or traditional or modern depending on what you are looking for.

2. Choose a substance that will hold up to your weather conditions

For us, a metal, insulated door was the obvious choice. It stands up to lots of life and to extreme weather conditions living in Canada. Wood doors are lovely but do require some maintenance. This is the same for glass doors. Glass might be better suited to warmer climates, and this is the same for fibreglass. Check out the best options for your climate.

3. Consider balance when adding side lights

I am a bit obsessed with balance, so a side panel on just one side makes me personally feel uncomfortable. In our case, it pushed the door into the corner. But there are many beautiful, balanced options with sidelights on both sides.

4. Get the size right.

Once we got rid of the side panel we had 60 inches of space to deal with. @Geraintthewelsh loves a big door for moving furniture, so we were able to add a 42 inch door and the installers were able to fill in the extra few inches. You may have flexibility if you had one or two side panels previously to increase the size of your door.

5. Windows in a door are a good way to add light to an entry way

I like to add windows to the door or side panel whenever possible to add light to an entry way. Many people don’t like clear glass so that people can see in your house, but there are many frosting options available.

6. Adding colour to the front door is a great way to perk up the exterior

I absolutely love a coloured front door, especially when it is a well chosen colour. I could not convince the family to go for a cool colour on our front door, but I am happy with the choice of black. We also had it painted black on the inside. Just make sure that if you are painting a door unit after purchase that you do one of two things. Either paint the door, side panels and trim all the same colour, or paint the door and the side panels one colour and the trim another colour. I personally prefer the everything one colour.

7. Choose door hardware to match the style of your door

This goes back to sticking with the style of your house and the style of the door. Stay in your lane and choose hardware that is in keeping with your style choices. We chose modern brushed metal hardware with an entry code pin. I cannot tell you how much easier this had made things at our house. Instead of issuing keys that get lost and leaving the door open for people that come home late, the door can just be locked and family members have access. We can even give the code to contractors to enter and then change it after they are finished. There are lots of possibilities and we love it.

Here is a photo of our house with the new front door, taken before the snow came last year.

You can read about the challenges of a Canadian winter here.

I hope this helps you when choosing a new door for your home. This is our new front door. Please excuse the reflection of the snow shovel in the photo. Canadian winters eh?

What style did you choose? I would love to see the final product!

Always

Leslie