Your front door is more than just the main entrance to your house: It is a tangible part of your home's personality, whether formal and dignified or exuberant with color. Small details often make a significant difference in the way the front entrance to a home is perceived. You can make your entrance a focal point of your home by concentrating on the front door size, style and applied finishes.
The Paint Quality Institute, an educational and research organization, offers these pointers on getting the look of your entrance right.
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| The front doors of these two houses are painted in a two-color scheme, with dramatically different results. The Victorian cottage at left is warm and fanciful in shades of rose, while the Italianate at right is more somber in it's blue and white color scheme. | |
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Painted wooden doors can be color coordinated with existing exterior paint color schemes or blended with the regional landscape palette. Monochromatic color schemes can help draw attention to a distinctive outside element such as a colorful flower garden surrounding the perimeter of the home. In a monochromatic scheme, the same hue on the front door is used in various tones throughout the entire exterior color scheme,
Complementary color schemes such as red doors with green shutters can also create a dramatic focal point to the entrance of your home.
Always use a high quality paints and primers for these projects so your doors will look good longer. Top quality, 100% acrylic exterior trim paints have excellent durability and color retention. Top quality alkyd paints can also be used. These paints have excellent adhesion, but may fade sooner.
Oversized doors. In addition to the standard height of 6 foot 8 inches, oversized front doors are available in 8-foot heights or larger, with enlarged widths. An option to incurring the expense of a custom door, is to install a standard sized double door. This creates the illusion of an expanded and dynamic entrance.
Front door fabrications (including various grains of wood and wrought iron) can be treated to a fresh coat of exterior paint, resulting in an innovative transformation through the use of color! Think outside the box when exploring color selections for the exterior front door. For instance, visualize not only traditional black on an iron door, but consider eye-catching newcomers such as antique bronze, pewter or burnished gold.
Interesting front door design details include squared or arched styles. Distinctive designs can be hand carved into the interior or exterior of wooden doors. Stained glass inserts can be set into wood to produce a unique design, as well as accommodating natural incoming light. Full pane glass doors surrounded by wood or iron are ideal choices for dark front entrances or homeowners desiring a greater abundance of light.
There are numerous creative ways to enhance an existing front door. By replacing existing hardware, the door style can be altered to spotlight a decorative finish or distinctive theme. Contemporary locksets and handle sets add beauty and elegance to the front entrance, converting an often-nondescript door into a stylish focal point.
Prior to tackling a front door makeover, do-it-yourselfers may wish to consider consulting appropriate sections of paintquality.com, shelter magazines and books, paint swatch cards or paint professionals for assistance with exterior paint type and color selection to ensure an attractive and quality front entrance.
Below, from the OHW files, are some different treatments of entrances.
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The Paint Quality Institute is sponsored by Rohm and Haas Company, a leading supplier of chemicals used manufacturing paint and paint-related coatings.
