Doors…How hard can it be?

When you are building a house, you find yourself obsessing over the craziest things….like doors. I guess I have always just taken doors for granted and now all of a sudden I was having to think about things like, should there be a window in that door and how tall of a door do you want? But it doesn’t stop there…what color should that door be and what kind of hardware should that door have. I was shocked that I had to think about the hardware on the door before they had even hung the drywall.

When they order the doors I guess they come with the hinges already on them.

I decided on going with Emtek hardware….the reason? I liked their hand rubbed bronze the best. There was just something about it that looked real to me. Some brands try too hard to make it look aged. So far I have been real pleased with them except for one thing…I will get to that in a later post.

Doors…this is my front door

It is hard to see in the picture, but the glass has a crackled look to it. I love the privacy it provides while still bringing in the light. After a few paint tries…and many hours of just staring…I went with Sherwin Williams Pool House. Don’t you just love the name? It is a lot darker than I thought I wanted, but when I went lighter the color just got lost.

Funny side note…I was really stressed about finding the right color and no one seemed to have any suggestions. I finally broke down and called my daughter’s ex boyfriend. They have been broke up for almost 3 years but I knew he would know what I would want.

I love the memory I have of him coming over and just sitting in the grass with me for over an hour talking color. I guess my point here is, don’t be afraid to ask the most random people for help.

I went with a eight foot door here to give it a “grand entrance” feel while all the other doors in the house are 6 foot 8. My hopes were that it would help cozy up the place…

and it allows me to have transoms over other the doors. I love the transoms …but…when my husband turns on the light in the bathroom, my bedroom is full of light even though he has the door shut. We will get use to it and like I said…I do love how it looks. Our house is really big but I could see this being a great trick to making a small house seem larger.

These are the doors going out to the pool. They are nothing like I thought I was getting. I didn’t want traditional french doors…I wanted them to have a small panel at the bottom which they do. It is just a lot bigger panel than I thought it was going to be. When you live in Florida you have to build for a hurricane which sometimes limits the choices your builder can give you. The doors are growing on me. The nice thing about them is it does kind of hide all the pool clutter.

These are my study doors…

They took the regular doors that I have in the house and cut out the panels and added glass. I love how it turned out! This works in my house because these doors are kind of tucked around the corner of the foyer. Maybe if I could see directly into the room from the living room I wouldn’t like them as much, after all, this is where I am hoping to make messes and get creative.

The main reason I wanted the glass doors is this is where we think we are going to put the video games, and since I have a teenage daughter I thought the illusion of privacy is better than a solid door when boys come to visit.

My pantry door is amazing…it is an old fashion push door. It swings both in and out.

I wish I had thought to put this on my laundry room door.

You have probably noticed that my doors are different colors. I made all my exterior doors white and all the interior doors black. Why? you might ask…Well I really wanted to try the black doors but I didn’t think I would like them on the french doors. I was afraid that it would tend to draw your eye to the door instead of to the view. I was a little nervous about this, considering I know no one with black doors, but I have to say I love them!

My painter on the other hand …not so much. Black shows everything and since he had never done black doors before it was a learning process for him. Our doors have a very smooth surface….I am not sure how much I would have liked them if the doors had a texture.

My next post will be about choosing hardware for your doors.