We have the same door system as picture above. We stained ours mahogany. Somehow I envision a painted door as a better look for your home,love the idea of eggplant... sorry I cant photoshop.

Quick photoshop for you. Notice your pics, the house is facing one direction and the doors facing the other.

Calirose, thank you so so much!!! I am so happy you could do that for me. My dh thanks you too!!!

I know roseabby, I thought painted too. But whatever my decision, I can't change my mind (ie, I can't repaint). That's why I thought wood color would be best.

I am sooooo happy with the Photoshop, thanks again!!!

Calirose, thanks again for the awesome photoshop you did for me. I followed up with the previous message on my Iphone after I passed it around the table to our friends when we were out to dinner (and that looked awesome!).

Now that I am home, your work is even more amazing!!!

If you have the chance, can you try to make the whole door/sidelights a forest green color (maybe copying the shutter color or whatever is easiest for you)?

I appreciate your help and your talent. When we showed our waitress the updated picture, she thought your work was the real door. :o)

Thanks again,
cathrugg

We got our door in a faux mahogany and it is beautiful. It would be closer to the eggplant color you love. I wanted real mahogany after seeing a door on display but we live by the water (ocean) and was told it would warp with the changes in season/humidity and was a poor choice for our location... sigh.... This was the next best thing and I do love it almost as much ;)

I am glad I could help! I have tried to match the shutters, however my program wouldn't accept it. Here is the closest it would go.

I would have to agree with Jakabedy. It's a beautiful door and it also looks like it would be expensive. It really isn't fitting to the style of your home. If you're not committed yet, maybe you could have some other choices tried on.

Calirose, thanks so much for following up and doing that for me. I totally understand about the colors and I am happy you could even do that!!

Jakabedy and Spring-meadow, now I see what you mean. We wanted this particular door because it allowed some light to filter in without compromising our privacy (we are at street level so anyone walking by/neighbors across the street could look straight in. And I thought a little bling of a fancy door would make it look nice, now I am not so sure!

This is a huge investment and while I love the door, I don't want to be foolish and get something that won't look nice. And it's not worth the 15% off sale price plus 10% coupon (all expiring tomorrow) if I do the wrong thing. I appreciate all of your comments/suggestions more than you could ever know and I thank you for them!

What about doing rectangle sidelights and the oval in the middle? Something like this?

These are the options we have available:

And here is a better picture of our whole house (we no longer have that monstrosity of a satellite dish on the roof!):

Thanks again.
cathrugg

What happened to choices L and M!?! I'll bet those would have been perfect. A & B, to me, look like they would suit your house (but not give you the light you're wanting). N, O & P are Craftsman. C, D & E seem sort of Edwardian, F sort of Tuscan/Mediterranean and G, H & I sort of Victorian. J and K are contemporary/neutral.

I think you're on the right track with the square sidelights, but I'm still not liking the arch, the busy leaded glass and the intricate panelwork. I'm the worst about finding something that is a great deal, and then realizing that I bought it for the bargain rather than for its suitability to my needs. You might be traveling in my footsteps a bit on this one.

Also, while you're at street level, you're not right on the street. So I don't know that you need all the leaded glass. I'm guessing the door opens into a foyer and center hall (half bath under the stair?), with LR on one side and DR on the other, with maybe the kitchen straight back, right? Those aren't really private rooms, so I wouldn't be as concerned about it as if they were bedrooms and you passed the door to get to the bath.

p.s., the satellite dish is hysterical. I'm imagining you inside monitoring the space station. What were we all thinking with those things?

Thanks for replying so quickly!!

I didn't even notice that letters were skipped! I went back to the door site and the system automatically filters out what is not available based on the door size/sidelights/color option. For example, if we go with the standard white door (not wood stained), the oval arch isn't available. I took another copy of the page with a white door chosen so some letters have disappeared while other options appeared:

A & B are definitely too boring for us!!

We didn't want to go with an oval door like G/I on the last post or L/M on this post as we had that at our last house and it seems everyone in the neighborhood who replaced their door chose this option!

There is someone on my street with the arch I wanted but I can't remember their sidelight option. Their house is white with black shutters, the door painted red. It's gorgeous and far enough from us that it won't look like a copycat.

You are correct that we have the small foyer with LR & DR, kitchen directly through the hall. Half bath is off the kitchen/laundry so not under the stairs but that's neither here nor there. :o) But we do want a bit of privacy.

OMG, the satellite dish used to be how others on our street would tell someone where their house was (such as "go past the house with the big satellite dish"; other person would say "what big satellite dish?"; reply would be "you'll know it when you see it" haha and it was true.) You should have seen the shadow it cast on the street when the sun was coming up over the house in the morning, it looked like aliens were getting ready to land in their spaceship! The previous owner apparently was a Chicago Cubs fan and while the development was being built, cable wasn't yet available. So that was his solution!! I think people thought we were having secret talks with China for a while lol. We never used it but apparently it would have still worked. We finally paid the guys from Direct TV $100 to take it down when they installed their system. The dish was probably 8 feet tall, it was huge!! And now, no one can call us the house with the big dish lol.

I'd rather have them say "the house with the nice new fancy door" but I am not sure it's an option anymore....

Why does there have to be so many options, lol???!!!

Are you not going to be using the storm door then (thinking of the glass inserts)?

I would stick with a traditional six panel door with 5 panel sidelights (sheers for privacy if necessary). B, the half moon, is more of a cottage style.

Glad you are rethinking this! Jakabedy did you a great service with her post.

We posted at the same time, spring-meadow!

We haven't decided yet on the storm door. The installer is building the new frame storm door ready.

A lot of people on our street have the half-moon including our neighbors across the street. I'd prefer not to have the same as them. It might have to be the standard 6 panel door but I wanted something fancier. I thank you for your opinion though, I do think you are right.

You all did me a great service, thank you so much!!

I have made so many decorating faux-paus, esp. fairly costly ones. This would have been an absolute nightmare if I did it wrong.

I always know I can trust the knowledge and experience from all of you!

As soon as I saw your house and the door you were considering, it seemed incongruent to me and I'm glad others have voiced the same opinion. Your lovely home is very simple and classic and something ornate would be so out of character. I know you wanted something "fancier" but I think the fact that it doesn't really go with your house would always bother you. Good luck with making a decision.

Here's a link on basic door styles and house architecture. You can see it suggests the same that I did. I said 5 lights because it looked like it would break nicely with your windows with some panel below. I would measure something like that out and see what works best. Maybe going full down would look better.

Here is a link that might be useful: Door Styling

"Oh My...NO!!!!"

That's the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the mock-up of the door you wanted. You must absolutely not mess up the style of your home. Keep something similar to what you already have. The simpler, the better. You can do a Google of Colonial/Georgian/Federal homes and look at "Images" to get an idea of door styles.

Good luck!

we have very similar house styles. I am replacing out front door with either the same style(6 panel)door with full height glass sidelights or a 4 panel door with full height sidelights. It's not exactly the door I "love", but what I love really doesn't go with my center hall colonial. good luck!

This is dejavu all over again.
Did we do this before or am I just clairvoyant?

I too like the rectangular insets of glass in the door.
Even with them in plain glass, you can always spray a frosted coat on the glass, or even put up some nice sheers. The seeded glass will obscure the interior from prying eyes.

But I like the green door matching your shutter color...with the rectangular classic shape.

Here is the link to the door I pictured above. Maybe it's just because this door is very popular in my area on traditional homes, but I just really like it. The door in the link is mahogany, but you could probably find a fiberglass one. I searched on "six panel glass lites"

Here is a link that might be useful: 6-panel door with glass lites

You could save money on the door and replace your rather standard lights with something really striking. Rejuvenation.com has fantastic period lighting--it would cost serious money, but make your house really stand out and be true to its history and architecture. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: another way to jazz up your home

Cathrugg, what did you end up getting?

Thanks again for everyone's help and advice and words of encouragement/discouragement (there was only 1 word here that I had to look up in the dictionary!).

I lost sleep over this decision but I feel confident in my decision now that's it's done and ordered.

The door we ordered is below, to be painted exactly like our current door (forest green and white edges). The etching in the glass will be brass (I chose a less complicated pattern in glass than I originally wanted). The stairs will be repainted with a darker concrete stain.

Still lynski---what lights do you think are more in line with our house? We have the same ones as a lot of people on our street, except ours are brass. (The door had to go, it's warped and cracked and not at all efficient as far as heat/air conditioning are concerned. You can see sunlight coming in UNDER the door it's so bad).

I slowly drove past the 53 houses on our street, staring at all of their different doors (took a picture of a couple but I am not comfortable putting their houses on the internet without their permission) and studied them over and over.

I wanted the wood stain but realized it wouldn't really go with our house. So back to the green with me getting my personal desire for fanciness in the middle window and keeping the rectangles for the sidelights.

Thanks again for everyone's help. I apologize in advance if anyone's disappointed with my choice after all the thoughts and help you provided.

I will surely follow up after installation if anyone is interested.

Enjoy your new front door!! It is beautiful. And the choice should be yours!!

Thank you calirose, esp. with your photoshopping talents. I appreciated it soooooo much!

You made the right choice with painting the door instead of staining it a wood color. Looking forward to seeing picture of your house with the new door.