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.

Your house is a fine one story Colonial Revival. A traditional Cape would have a steeper roof without dormers, no porch, no portico or any classical features like columns or pediments. A good choice would be a paint grade exterior wood panel door from TruStile in Colorado. They have more choices than any other company and it is easy to design a door with their design software. Here is a link that might be useful: TruStile doors This post was edited by Renovator8 on Wed, Sep 17, 14 at 12:02

Hi, Our door has been in only about 2 1/2 years (though this winter and last have had lots of extremes) and they look good as new. No refinishing yet. We have the easy to re-finish finish, based on our door-man's advice. We (I, mostly) waited 30 years to pick our entry way. I could not decide. When the house next door (built as an exact mirror of ours, over 150 years ago) was gutted, the entry was lovely so I went to the same folks to do ours basically the exact same way (though we did make a few minor changes). I do know how difficult making the decisions are. And, the design has no glass in the door but glass sidelights. We live right in the city. And I think the vast majority of our neighbors have glass in their entry way. BTW, is that huge opening in the front of your house for a garage?

I can't believe I'd say this, but stylewise I don't think your existing doors are quite perfect. One is fine, but it doesn't work as well as a double door. I think the doors you are thinking of would be a fabulous upgrade appearance-wise. You could do a sidelight but I think the double door works nicely, and you'd get plenty of extra light with the new style. If you keep the doors, which are certainly nice enough, consider a brighter color. The black is elegant but if you think it feels too dark, an easy, traditional choice would be red. (The particular shade might not be so easy!) I guess paint color goes for new or repainting, but the new ones won't be as dark due to all the glass so I'd keep them black. I think the fake wood doors look pretty bad when "stained". If your climate doesn't allow for actual wood, don't stain it please! Before painting, be sure to get LARGE samples painted on posterboard or something to see if it looks right.