If you are wondering how to choose the best exterior doors for your home, there are many factors to consider. From your front entryway to your back garden, your doors are the gateway to your home and what is beyond it. Most days, you’ll use your door several times, and you might start taking its looks for granted. To guests, home buyers, and probably yourself, the front door is one of the defining elements of your home’s curb appeal. It sets the tone for the rest of your space. And, just like your sliding patio door, its energy efficiency is critical to keeping your home from wasting utilities.
When you’re getting new exterior doors, there is a huge range of options and not just relating to style. Materials, opening mechanism, hardware, and whether the door includes glass, are all options that you need to consider. In this guide, we’ll show you how to choose the best exterior doors for your home based on your own personal priorities and sense of style.
Choosing Door Materials
While you might be tempted to choose a door based entirely on looks, it is worthwhile to start with materials instead. Most door materials are available in a huge range of styles anyway. What changes is the price point, durability, and efficiency of the door. That said, if you care deeply about one specific look, like a perfectly realistic wood grain, you may want to take that into account when you are choosing your material too.
Otherwise, there are three main options when it comes to door materials:
- Wood: Wood doors are not the most durable, or the cheapest, door option. However, they look beautiful, and they are good insulators. Some argue they also add the most warmth and charm. Wood doors need the most maintenance, an important factor to consider.
- Steel: Steel is a more durable option than wood, it is more secure, and steel better resists pressures from water and sun. On the other hand, some people feel that steel doesn’t look as good as other options.
- Fibreglass: Fibreglass is highly popular because it combines some of the advantages of both wood and steel. It does not warp, and it does not rust. It is strong and available in many different styles.
Choosing Type And Design
While you might just think of typical entry doors that only swing open, you have options regarding the type of door and the way it moves. Most exterior doors are swinging, but there are good reasons to consider other types of functionalities.
Sliding doors are great for conserving indoor or outdoor space. They slide horizontally along a wall and will therefore not swing into either your garden or your home. That can give you more clearance for furniture or anything else.
You might also consider double doors. Having two doors gives you more clearance and dramatically changes the whole feel of your entrance. Two doors can add elegance, make an entryway more visually prominent, and overall boost your home’s curb appeal.
Screen doors are another popular option. If you’d like to leave the door open for any length of time in nice weather, adding a screen door will keep out bugs or debris blown by the wind. We highly recommend screen doors for patio entryways. They might also be useful for your front door and can help provide a thorough breeze throughout your house.
Whatever you choose, measure the dimensions of your current door or the door opening before you select a style. Also, ensure the door you choose is either the same handedness as your current door (that is, whether it swings open to the left or to the right), or if you want your new door to swing the opposite way, that you have the clearance in your entryway to do so.
Design options for front entry doors vary widely and don’t necessarily fit neatly into overall aesthetics. That said, we recommend you choose a door which could be classified as the same style as the exterior of your home. If you’re not sure, your door professionals can usually assess what your exterior design suggests and show you a selection of doors which would work well. Door styles tend to be classified as:
- Modern
- Minimalist
- Farmhouse
- Craftsman
- Industrial
- Traditional
Choosing a door style that complements the aesthetics of your overall exterior goes a long way toward improving your home’s curb appeal when it comes time to sell.
Choosing Door Colour
One of the most enjoyable parts of choosing any exterior door is picking out the colour. Neutral hues are usually a safe choice, and using a shade that is found elsewhere in your home’s exterior can help your door blend in nicely, which contributes to overall consistency in style and appearance.
While this approach might work for some homes, it may not be the most exciting option if you’d like your door to pop. You can really dramatize your home by picking a stand-out colour for your entry door that adds some pizzazz to the whole exterior. Here are some tips for choosing a good colour:
- Make it darker: Bright colours can look great, but if you’re worried it will stand out too much, then just darken the shade. A darker colour will look less intense.
- Greens: When you have lush greenery surrounding your home, a shade of green for your doors will always look good. You can choose a tone right from your garden if you like. Or experiment with a slightly more exotic shade of green.
- Pastels: In cold climates, there is sometimes a tendency of using pastel shades for doors in order to brighten up the winters. If you live where there is snow, leaning into this tradition may be appealing.
- Red: It may sound bold, but red is one of the most popular non-traditional door colours. No matter which shade you choose, you can be sure that it will stand out.
Should Your Door Have Glass?
There are many pros and cons of choosing a door that has glass panes built in. While these doors look stylish and can add natural light, they also increase the cost of the door, can allow people to see in, and can create security vulnerabilities. Whether your door should have glass depends on which of these factors is most important to you. An alternative is choosing a single glass pane high on the door to get the look and natural light of glass without undermining your privacy or safety.
How To Choose The Best Exterior Doors For Your Home – Consider Door Security
There’s no question that all of your exterior doors need to be secure. This is a non-negotiable feature, and it’s important to ask about the various security elements of your door before you make the purchase. It also makes sense to only consider doors that have a high security rating and great reviews when it comes to security.
Choose The Best Exterior Doors For Your Home From Weaver Exterior Remodeling
The door experts at Weaver can help you decide which style of door is right for your home. We offer exterior doors for every purpose, from patio and garden doors, to sliding doors, to side doors and front entrances. Call us today or Get A Quote Here!