I'm not really good at these things, but here is a photo of the different paint grade thermatru doors, so maybe someone else might have an opinion. Cross posting in the Home Decorating forum might also help.

I purchased my Thermatru door not too long ago (third row, 2nd from left ) and have been happy so far. I plan to paint it red this summer!

I do like the door you picked for your home.

Bumping this up....we are mostly thinking solid panel probably row 3, columns 6, 9, 10. We could do glass if it would look better but we are thinking we already have the sidelights and transom for light. Any idea what style door would look best on this exterior?

I like either 6 or 10 but that's because I'm personally not a fan of arches.

If you decide to go with windows, I like the first row #7 because it would match the length of your sidelights.

We can change the sidelight to match the height of the panels on anything

THANK YOU! That is exactly what I was looking for. Sounds like this is easy then :) This panel style ether glass or no glass. I think for insulation sake, we will do no glass (we are in NY and husband is big on keeping heating down). However we have a mudroom and I think we will do the glass there since it needs the light (just need to figure grills or no grills?) Next post will be on trim which is currently making me crazy!

I think side lights are so pretty, but are you at all worried about a security risk?

It would be a shame to create sidelights and a transom and not glaze them. For energy conservation consider a vestibule/enclosure.

I am not too worried about security. Nearly all the homes near me have double doors or sidelights and it is a safe area. Besides, if someone wanted to break in there are lots of windows and sliding glass doors that they could also break.

A vestibule is basically out of the question at this point since we are already done framing

Such vestibules are usually added after the house is finished.

Substituting insulated panels for glass will not be more energy efficient than a vestibule because the major issue is air infiltration.

JDS...those pictures, be still my heart. So beautiful.

Sarahbr...I so love your house. How did the basement issue work out if I may ask?

Thanks ILoveRed. Not really any progress yet. We brought in a landscape architect but there's no real answer yet (he doesn't seem to have enough structural knowledge to really know how to handle this). One option is to build a frost wall underground about 3 feet from the foundation but we are worried as the house was just built so that could cause settling. The other option is to basically build a box of dirt around the lower 3 feet of the basement wall- basically like a big planter box coming up to the base of the windows. I would cover with stone though probably since I don't want dirt near the windows. I wish there was an easy answer. It is still so frustrating that it was built wrong.