Simpson is in my opinion the best "off the shelf wood door" available. Jeldwen is a pretty good door it was better when Morgan owned them but they were dumbed down a little in my opinion when they were purchased by Jeldwen. As far as the Aurora F/G door this if I am not mistaken is the IWP doors which were at the time before Jeldwen purchased them shaky at best in my honest opinion and I have seen no evidence in any of the products Jeldwen produces that they are higher quality than under the prior manufacturers.

CamG, I really like he latest rendition with only one gable. I agree with using taller windows. Will you have divided lites? I think this is similar to what virgilcarter is suggesting: We used 8x8 . The columns were slightly off the ground so we put in trim pieces. I would reconsider the stone on the front of the porch. I didn't realize this needed to be specified in advance. We didn't have a brick or stone ledge so it was too late by the time I decided to put stone. Maybe just put in the stone ledge just in case you change your mind.

The front door is just ugly aside from not being very weather tight. During the winter it leaks a lot of cold air from all sides of it. It's a solid core door, that has been dinged up through the years, no window either. We want something which will let in light to the hallway. Plus, the existing screen door, is a cheap one with fake stained "glass" in it and is falling apart. We recently painted it which improved it's appearance dramatically but doesn't take care of the problems it has. Plus it does nothing for the overall appearance of the home. We've been able to stop some of the air leakage with weather stripping, but because of the way the lock is installed it tends to jamb and not close properly if we use enough to really make it as leakproof as it needs to be. Thanks for the links for the French door tho. I do agree with you on the point of it going to look like a front door in the living room if I use something else - which has been part of my problem all along and why we haven't yet jumped into replacing this one. I want to make sure I pick the absolute right door here or it's going to really look terrible!

I've also thought of building a little awning or cover for the door to provide some protection from the sun... You'd have to make an awning that is 10' deep to be any use with a west exposure. The reason is the sun does its damage late in the day when it's lower.