What is the Design of Your Front Door? - Part I

Published by cravat | Filed under Buyer / Seller Tips, Miscellaneous, Real Estate

Here’s a subject that’s rarely given enough thought in custom home design…the way you enter and leave your house. We’re just talking about a door, right? A hole in the wall, a way in and a way out; what more is there to consider?

It’s easy to overlook the design of the entrance to our houses. We spend our time working on the design of the exterior and creating the spaces inside the house. But the front door and the spaces connected to it occupy an important middle ground between indoors and out and set the stage for the success of the entire custom home design. The entry begins to establish your home’s personality and suggests how the rest of the house should be. The entry is a symbolic passage from the public realm of the street to the private realm of the family and tells the world something about the people within.

If Walls Could Speak

It’s a cliché to say that the front of a house “makes a statement”, but clichés usually have some basis in truth. The entry can be a barrier or an invitation, obvious or concealed, pompous or humble; it can welcome you in or it can keep you at arm’s length. The front door and the area around it can be a message board for the neighborhood - hung with wreaths and ivy during the holidays, festooned with red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July, and decorated with pumpkins and corn shocks at Halloween.

Each element that makes up the home’s entry has something to say. The classic American front porch is a good example; it’s the outdoor social center, a place to watch the activity of the street, a place to meet and greet neighbors and friends. A front porch is an outdoor room, neither completely public nor private and easing the transition into and out of the house. A house with a big, broad front porch tells the world that the family inside values the social fabric of the street, welcoming neighbors and friends and inviting them to stop and visit.

The Entry Sequence

But the front porch is just one part of a sequence of spaces and elements creating a transition from the public realm (the street) to the private realm (the house). That sequence includes walks, landscaping, steps, porches, overhangs, lights, doors, and interior entry spaces. A successful entry sequence considers the placement and design of all of these elements and their relationship to each other.

The entry to a home begins long before you’ve stepped onto the property. It starts in the street with the initial visual cues — where the entrance to the property is, and where the entrance to the house is.

At first glance from the street, the entry to the house should be seen or at least hinted at to provide a clear destination for our guests. Our old friend the front porch is a great way to indicate clearly where the entrance is to be found. A porch or overhang at the entry also keeps your guests out of the weather while they’re waiting for you to answer the door.

A path from the street or driveway to the front door should be direct - people look ahead subconsciously as they approach a building, searching for the shortest path to the entrance. The beginning of the path should be well lit so that it can be found in the dark, and should be wide enough for two people to walk comfortably abreast. This is also a great place for colorful landscaping. In temperate and cold climates, leave areas open where shoveled snow can be piled alongside the walk without burying the planting beds.

A little mystery isn’t a bad idea here either - vary the direction of the path a bit so the scenery changes and the front door moves in and out of view. I will tell you more on the continuation of this article.