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Building a Home

Help me choose a front door

14 years ago

Well the foundation is poured so it's time to finalize some choices. I need help with front door choices. Here is our front elevation. As drawn is a 42" door and 12" sidelites. The door(s) will be 96" high.

{{gwi:1491215}}

Here's my question: I don't really think sidelites are consistent with the traditional european country look we are going for. Would you do a single door without sidelites or would that leave too much empty space?

http://www.doorsbydecora.net/templates/System/details.asp?id=41910&PID=561850

Or door with sidelites as drawn:

http://www.doorsbydecora.net/templates/System/details.asp?id=41910&PID=561861

Or 30" double doors. My builder says double doors are a pain in the neck.

http://www.doorsbydecora.net/templates/System/details.asp?id=41910&PID=561831

Thank you so much and would love pictures!!!

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Comments (4)

bigkahuna
14 years ago
I would look at your space in the foyer to be sure you have room for the sidelites with casing /trim. I dont have strong opinion on the sidelites but it depends on your feelings here I feel and how much light you want coming through. You will however love the feel of a larger 42x96 door in your hands. It has a massing that just feels like you are entering a special home /place. I wouldnt do the double door at all though. Good luck.
midwestmama
14 years ago
We have sidelights at our current house. I have never had them before. I absolutely hate them. There is no way to peep through a peep hole to see who is at your door. Any salesman is always looking through to see what you are doing. My aunt drove by one evening and told me she thought my table was a mess, because she could see into the kitchen table as we had that light on and it was dark outside. Even though our next house is on an acreage and I don't predict we'll have drop by visitors (which is part of the reason of moving out to the middle of nowhere) I'm still going to be sure to have no sidelights! But it is a personal prefernce. Some really like them.

A benefit to the wider door or double doors, they are much easier when you are moving furniture in and out. I really like double doors, but they do significantly increase the price.
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I almost pasted in your photo so everyone didn't have to go the link route, but I noticed all your photos are Â© all rights reserved. So I didn't. That's a smart thing to do by the way, Â©. Your screen door is very smart looking. There are a lot of doodads out front: the flower on the door, the big pot of plants, the flag. If you get a new color on the door that you love, I wonder if there will be less doodads and decoration. :~D I can think of one color for the door. It's a red, but it is a very warm red. "Warm" red is a big clue that it is an orange-y-er red. I know you don't want "orange" but the bricks are going to dictate to a great extent the color choices. Also, you don't want the door color to blend any more, like the current color. So, to get that punch you're likely lookin' at some flavor of red. Ben Moore's Caliente would be the first chip/sample I'd check out. Another idea to play with is something like a mid-value golden yellow. Again, due to the brick you'll have to get the *right* golden yellow, but it is another color option that will pop and not blend.
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Good thoughts Bronwynsmom! Our garage door is the Garaga overlay design. The rectangles that you see are in fact recessed as you guessed. The framing around the rectangles is over a flat door panel. The way the garage door is shown on the Sketch-up elevation picture is a bit off. Our garage door will have three rectangles across, not four as shown (the garage door is 14 feet wide). As a result the rectangles will be even wider on the true garage door. I will see about getting the different doors we are considering put into the Sketch-up picture. I will also investigate if we can get rectangles rather than squares into the two doors (sort of like the first door that you posted above, but with two doors). The two doors will at best be each 32 inches wide so the rectangles can only be so wide. I wondered what you thought about the window above the door. I definitely want this window above the door. The entrance way is 12 feet high, so there is plenty of room for the window above the door, and currently the doors we have looked at have been standard height (around 82 inches), although we could look at a taller door. The ceilings in the rest of our house are only 8 feet, which is still the norm in our area, and all interior doors are around 82 inches high. Do you think there should be a space above the door before the window starts? Should the glass in the window include frame to break up the shape at all? Perhaps it should look like two stacked rectangular transoms? Any thoughts on this? I really appreciate your help, and the help of others on this site. Carol
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I agree with RedRyder. I also would not paint the porch brick. It's a nice classic colour that looks great against green (from your landscaping). My vote for your door is Cerise or a coral, orange or yellow. A bright saturated colour. Intensity, as RedRyder said. Blues would work as well but I wouldn't go with a muted greyed-blue. Looking at SW's wall of colour on their website, I'd try something like Capri or Danube. Play around with their visualizer some more. Also agree on waiting until shutters are done before deciding. Good luck and keep us posted. :)
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Maybe if you removed them or replaced with the right sized shutters others in the neighborhood would follow your lead :) So many builders substitute the small ones because they are readily available and less expensive. I personally think many of the builders have no idea about shutter sizing and proportion and only look at cost. Your shutters aren't nearly as bad as some of these photos in these posts in the links below... https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/residential-architecture-101-shutters/ http://architecturalobserver.com/shutters-or-shudders/
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mica
14 years ago
We used the Therma-Tru Classic Craft American style single door with side lights. We like the side lights. If you have pets, they might enjoy the view too. :)

That style might not be appropriate for your home, but we're happy with the build quality, day-to-day feel of operation and durability of this level of Therma-Tru product over the 2.5 years we've been in our home. As is typical, we could have spent a lot more or a lot less. I think we obtained decent quality for an OK price.

The one regret is that we didn't test out the stain kit before committing to a certain color. So we ended up with a much darker stain than I was expecting. It still looks good, but beware when selecting stain if you go that route.

* Privacy: Since we live in the country and our entry leads into a hallway, we have no issue with the sidelights and privacy. If anything, it provides that much more natural light into the entry hall.

* Double door sealing: I would avoid any double door like the plague because of sealing challenges. Been there, done that in one of our earlier homes with even higher end patio doors and average quality utility room doors.

Here is a link that might be useful: Therma-Tru Door Example
pps7
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you for the feedback. I think I've ruled out the double doors. I really don't think sidelites are c/w with the style of the home, but I'm worried but a dark foyer.

What I would really like is something like this, but again
worried about a dark foyer.

http://www.doorsbydecora.net/templates/System/details.asp?id=41910&PID=654547

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