When I ordered the complete new sweep, I also ordered a replacement rib insert, just in case. I took off the existing sweep today, uncrimped the ends, took out the old insert, and replaced it with the new one, trimmed to size. I didn't re-crimp the ends because it's in there pretty snugly and I don't want to have to uncrimp again. Existing sweep is back in place and I didn't have to add five more screw holes at the bottom of my door. It's a bit snug at the threshold right now, but I think it will compress a bit. It's possible my original insert shredded so quickly because it passed over a little cotton rug I usually put just inside the door. That isn't going to work anymore. No more daylight under the door. Quick fix: $5-ish, no new holes in entry door, so easy a baby could do it.

If you want an entry area, put up a wall and have one. We have a home now where someone knocked out the wall between the nice entry and the living room and we basically put the wall back with a shoe bench and shelf arrangement (freestanding because we didn’t want to do construction work) because it just flows better that way. We also just looked at another house which we decided not to go for after much deliberation in part because if we opened it up to get much needed space, we’d end up with a big box with the front door entering right into everything, like a small apartment layout. Houses, especially houses with kids and lots of visitors, need some way to control the flow of traffic and direct people to where they should take off coats and boots and what have you. If you have room for a mud room, great, but if not - entry area is a necessity, IMO. And people are going to be beyond bored with HGTV style everything probably sooner rather than later - next year or the year after it’ll be some other designer and they will be putting walls up because everyone is sick of open plan and always being on display while cooking. If this is your forever home then do what you like and what feels good to you, not what’s popular on HGTV. (If you were going to flip the house then I might be saying something different.) Personally, if my front door were that close to my kitchen, I’d really really really want some kind of wall for privacy. Who wants all your mid-meal cooking mess to be on display to anyone who comes to the door?

A pergola is lovely in a place with lots and lots of sun. Elsewhere, it can get dark and dank in the winter. I'd make a path to your door. Much of it can be part of your driveway. Just replace with brick or pavers or something visual that you can still drive on. Then, I'd clear out the shrubs along the side of the house with the door. I'd turn the bed by the right front of the house into a semi-circle no larger than the width of the house and have a variety of plants and heights instead of that yew hedge. (Not sure it's yew, but it looks like it). Window boxes are hard to keep looking nice. They don't have a huge amount of space for roots, keeping them watered enough but not soggy can be a challenge. This is why you see a lot more window boxes in carefully staged Houzz photos than in real life.

Is the reason for the storm door over the entry door because the entry door is unsatisfactory (e.g., leaky, not energy efficient)? I ask, because I argued for storm doors for our condo's old, wood entry doors and, after determining they wouldn't fit, we replaced the entry doors with Provia Heritage fiberglass doors which have worked really well (very energy-efficient and quiet). That said, there's a building across the street from me with white, full-view storm doors. I think that white door really makes the building looks cheap. (Provia also makes storm doors.) -- amateur