Choosing a Front Door

Traditional or modern, formal or casual, plain or colourful – as the portal into your world, the front door to your house should encapsulate the feel of your home. Whether making a perfect first impression on a new neighbour or providing good time-nostalgia to old friends; the front door is the first and last thing guests to your house will interact with. Choosing a front door should therefore be no casual affair, no matter how informal the feel of your home might be. In this article I provide some tips for choosing a suitable front door for your home.

Firstly, bear in mind the architecture of the building, for this will have a huge impact on the styles of front door that will suit the house. A door that compliments the style of the house crowns the appearance with the impression that you have deliberately and successfully bought the whole theme of the house together. However, no matter how nice a front door you have, if it clashes with the overall style of the house it can like the overall theme is a mere accident! A shiny steel door on a Victorian house, for example, will look as out of place as a rustic dark wood door on an otherwise sparkling modern exterior. Many onlookers may wonder how you can have intentionally themed the rest of the house, when you haven’t even noticed the glaring clash of the front door! For those of you that put a lot of time and money into the style of your house, this is not the kind of impression I image you’re looking to make. The lesson – make sure the front door matches the style of the house. There is no hard and fast rule to guide your choice here, but oftentimes wooden doors look best on old, traditional houses and UPVC doors can suit modern houses better.

Once you have decided on the theme of the door, consider the colour and design of the door; make sure the colour doesn’t clash with any paintwork and that the design suits the style of the house. Doors come in a range of colours and finishes so take your time and choose wisely, using all the information that is available. Stained wooden doors look exceptionally classy, for example, but will require re-staining every couple of years, whereas paint tends to last longer. UPVC doors also come in a range of styles, though there is evidence to suggest that white UPVC doors hold up better against direct sunlight than darker or wood grain doors.

Finally, consider the practicality of the door. As nice as glass panels look, for example, they are not a particularly wise idea if security is an issue! Wooden doors require a certain amount of upkeep as well, which not everybody is capable of providing. Different types of doors also come with different levels of security; some old, wooden doors will have a single deadlock, for example, where modern composite or UPVC doors may have up to three of four locks built in to hold the door firmly in place, yet only require one keyhole to open them all.