How to Pick an Entry Door That Will Look Best With Your Home
As the entrance to your home, the front door is one of the most important features on your property. Therefore, when the time comes to change out this feature, it’s important to know how to choose an entry door that complements your home’s façade. The following tips for choosing an entry door can help you find the right style, color, material and texture.
What Types Of Door Styles Are There?
When you’re first learning how to pick an entry door, you might be confused by the number of styles available on today’s market. Granted, the word “style” has subjective meaning to many homeowners. The key is to find a door featuring a design that matches your personality.
Entry doors are generally classified under the following six style categories to make matters easier for consumers.
Dutch Entry Doors
A Dutch entry door is split horizontally along the middle to allow the top and bottom halves to open separately if so desired. The earliest Dutch doors date to the 1600s, and the style has remained popular ever since. With its unique function, a Dutch door gives you the option to open just the bottom half to allow pets out to play or to open just the top half when you receive parcels and delivery food.
Contemporary Entry Doors
For the modern homeowner, the contemporary panel-free entry door is often considered the most practical and aesthetically pleasing option. Boasting a flush surface and typically painted with vibrant hues, contemporary doors generally serve as single blocks of color on the façade of a home. A contemporary door can simultaneously look retro-50s modernist or 21st century.
Craftsman-Style Entry Doors
One of the more traditional looks is the craftsman-style entry door, which consists of upper window panels and longer vertical panels underneath. However, the most distinctive feature of the craftsman door is the dentil, which is basically a shallow shelf that sits right below the window panels.
Decorative Entry Doors
With the addition of features such as large patterned-glass panels, metal grilles or a combination of the two, an entry door can take on a more decorative appearance. Decorative entry doors lend a classic touch to the façade of new and old homes alike.
Classic Entry Doors
Any door that features long, distinct panels and horizontal grains could be classified as a classic entry door. Many doors of the classic variety also feature patterned panels of vertical glass. Unlike painted contemporary doors, classic doors typically feature finishes that enhance the character of natural wood.
Rustic Entry Doors
One style that has spanned the centuries is the rustic look, which features artisan-crafted patterns in the vein of Old World architecture. Available in various designs, rustic entry doors could be the perfect option for any homeowner who opts for a Tuscan or classic European façade.
How to Choose the Color of Your Entry Door
When you choose the color for your front door, you should keep two objectives in mind — complementary and personality. From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s wise to choose a color that is complementary to the design and style of your home and the colors within the immediate surroundings. At the same time, consider how a given color might reflect your personality and the mood you wish to convey to visitors.
To get a sense of which colors would be most complementary, take note of the dominant and secondary colors that spring forth as you observe the façade of your home. The colors of your roof and walls would be the dominant colors — the roof might display hints of several hues, such as blue or green. Secondary colors would be the color of your trimmings and deck, as well as any statues or fixtures at the entrance of your property.
In all likelihood, the dominant and secondary colors of your home’s façade were originally chosen to complement one another. A sensible choice for your door could most likely fall within the secondary options, whether it’s a color that contrasts the dominant one or serves as a lighter variation of the roof or walls. An outright contrast would be two complete opposites, such as white and black or brick red and olive green. A lighter variation would be a softer tint or tone of the darker dominant color.
The color of your door could also be chosen independently of your home’s façade and simply serve as a reflection of your personality as a homeowner. According to various systems of color theory, such as the ancient Chinese philosophical system known as feng shui, color correlates to personality as follows:
Yellow (Yellow)
Due to its brightness and association with the sun, the color yellow is generally linked with energy and feelings of happiness and warmth. As such, a yellow front door can liven up the façade to a home and serve as the visual focal point to passersby. If the surroundings are somewhat neutral or dull-toned, a yellow door could uplift the mood of the overall façade. When guests arrive at your door, the energy and vibrancy that yellow conveys could serve as a positive starting note to the interactions that follow.
Bright Red
As the color of roses and some of the world’s most delicious fruits and berries, red is associated with feelings of passion and the virtues of strength and power. Bright red in particular conveys a liveliness and energy that confident and passionate individuals use to express themselves in any given number of ways, such as with wardrobe items or automobiles.
When bright red features on the front door of a home, eyes will naturally gravitate toward that feature. As such, the energies conveyed by bright red — passion, power, strength — will be felt by most people who visit and drive by your home. Essentially, the use of bright red is a bold statement that conveys confidence and individualism on the part of the homeowner who chooses the color for his or her door.
Deep Red
If you enjoy red from an aesthetic standpoint but wish to steer clear of the boldness and eye-catching qualities of a brighter red, darker hues of the color might be a more suitable choice for your front door. With tones and shades of red such as brick, burgundy and crimson, your door can simultaneously have the pretty qualities of red but also function as a neutral feature that blends in with the home’s façade and natural surroundings.
Orange
Orange is often perceived as a color that embodies the carefree spirit of an individual who embraces the simpler pleasures in life. The color’s namesake fruit is deemed by large portions of the public as sweet, tasty and refreshing. As such, an orange door can convey moods of carefree passion and sweetness in the eyes of visitors and passersby.
On the façade of a typical home, orange might not necessarily work within its surroundings, as the color can often clash with walls, roofs and yards. Therefore, it’s especially important in the case of orange to consider the colors of your walls, trimming and roof in advance of choosing an orange door. That said, orange can be a bright, lively and fun color on select homes.
Green
As the color of grass, bushes and leaves, green is entwined with nature. Likewise, green is associated with a love for the environment and respect for traditional values. When used on the façade of a home, green conveys a connectedness with the surrounding community on the part of the homeowner.
Of course, options with green run the gamut from muted and neutral to rich and bright. Colors like forest and olive green can easily blend in with surrounding trees and bushes, while a brighter kelly green can play off the color of a rich, healthy lawn. For a more modernist flavor, a mint or lime door could serve as a visual focal point to your home’s façade that could simultaneously extend upon and contrast the natural color of surrounding greenery.
Blue
The color of the clear sky and clean bodies of water, blue is a color that blends in well with natural surroundings. Despite its natural attributes, blue is more commonly chosen for interiors rather than exteriors. Nonetheless, blue is simultaneously perceived as an individualistic yet attractive color that conveys a detached, alluring confidence on the part of its user.
Various shades of blue could be used to reflect, enhance or even contrast the surroundings of a door. If you live in a mostly clear-skied climate, a bright blue door could reflect well upon the mood of just about any given day. Alternately, a darker tone or shade of blue could serve as a naturalistic contrast to the greens, grays or even whites that might make up the rest of your home’s façade.
Purple
Purple is one of the more outré choices for a home’s façade. Since the color is not generally associated with anything natural, aside from grapes, purple is often seen as a more decorative color. While the color might not be for everyone, a purple door can serve as a distinct focal point that’s liable to make a lasting impression on passersby. From an aesthetic standpoint, various shades, tones and tints of purple can be used to complement cool and warm colors alike.
Black
Black is simultaneously a neutral yet bold color that works in a vast range of surroundings, from wintery climates with white skies and frosty trees to sunnier environments with blue skies and healthy greenery. In terms of its overall mood, black conveys refinement and seriousness, with hints of boldness and ruggedness. In lighter surroundings, black can even have an imposing presence.
On a home with a predominantly white façade, a black door can serve as a suitable contrast in the eyes of viewers. If a home has a neutral or brightly colored set of walls and trimmings, black can blend in well with its surroundings while drawing eyes to the door just the same. Whether the black is shiny or matte, a black door can easily work on just about any property.
Other Style Options to Consider When Choosing an Entry Door
The more you learn about how to choose an entry door, the more important it becomes to understand the differences in materials and surface types between one option and another.
Material: Fiberglass vs. Wood
When it comes to the front door of a residential property, the first — and often only — material that comes to mind is wood. Indeed, wood has centuries of architectural history behind it as a natural product that’s derived from trees. On the exterior of a home, wood conveys a timeless quality regardless of current design trends. Texturally, wood is suited to a full range of paint colors and finishes.
Wood, however, also has its drawbacks. Even though wood is strong, it can slowly grow weak along the edges as time and the elements take their toll. More troubling is the possibility of mite infestation, which can eat away at the integrity of a wooden door and render your home less secure and more vulnerable to heavy weather. Thankfully, there’s an alternative to wood that has gained popularity due to its strength and visual resemblance to the natural material.
With a fiberglass door, the entrance to a home will likely be impervious to weather for the entire span of a residential occupancy. Fiberglass can be made to resemble wood to such an extent that doors made of the respective materials are virtually indistinguishable. Thanks to the superior strength and mite resistance of fiberglass, a door made of the material can make your façade more attractive in the eyes of future homebuyers should you ever decide to sell your property.
Surface Type: Flush or Paneled
The front surface of an entry door can either be flush or paneled, depending on the taste of the homeowner. A flush door consists of a flat surface, whereas a paneled door contains molded square and rectangular patterns. If a homeowner opts to have window panes incorporated into the door, pre-existing panels will often be removed to make way for the glass.
Generally speaking, a paneled entry door conveys sophistication with respect for detail, whereas a flush door is often viewed as simplistic and solely functional. As such, paneled doors are more commonly seen on the exteriors of homes, while flush doors are generally reserved for interiors.
Surface Type: Smooth or Textured
The surface of an entry door can come in two types — smooth or textured. A door with a smooth texture is suitable for paint and is the type to choose if you want a solid, rich color on your entry door.
A textured door, by contrast, has more of a rough, natural surface, and is therefore suited for finishes rather than paint. Smooth and textured doors are made from both wood and fiberglass.
Consult With Entry Door Experts
For 35 years, Quality Overhead Door has been the leading provider of entry doors for homes in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. With the vast range of door styles in our inventory, we can take your vision of the ideal façade and make it a reality. To learn more about how we can transform the entryway to your home, click right over to our entry door pages.
Additional Resources on Entry Doors:
- What are the Parts of Front Door
- How to Choose a Front Door Color
- What Size is a Standard Front Door
- How to Choose a Front Door Style
