When you go to find a new front door for your home, such a seemingly easy task suddenly becomes an overwhelming mess. There are tons of types of doors on the market, and each one has countless specific designs to choose from. How do you sift through all of it to choose the best front door for you?
Well, here’s a guide to the various factors you need to consider to help you narrow down your search to just a few options that will enhance your home and work wonderfully.
1. Look at Your Budget
First and foremost, before you even start looking at doors, determine how much you have to spend on your front door. Doors are available in practically every price range, but let’s consider a minimum of $400 for the most barebones option and a maximum of $10,000 as if the sky’s the limit.
You’ll want to know how much you can afford to spend and stick to that. It’ll help cut your selection dramatically unless you have a very high budget for the most luxurious options.
2. Consider the Exterior Design of Your Home
The next most important thing to consider is the exterior design of your home. Always consider that your home’s curb appeal is essentially a first impression for guests, especially for DIY front door installation. It also greatly impacts your home’s value.
If you put a bright purple modern door in a contemporary design scheme on a rustic log cabin, it looks ridiculous. You want to avoid bad combinations like that. Even if you love a specific door, if it doesn’t match your home, it detracts from your home’s entire aesthetic.
3. Your Home’s Interior Design
This is similar to the previous tip, but it’s not quite as impactful.
While the way your door matches your home’s exterior impacts how others see your home, you don’t want to neglect the bulk of your experience, either. The main entryway can impact the atmosphere inside of the home, and you want it to match your decor as much as possible without sacrificing too much in other areas. This is mostly because you can change your decor when you want, and you’re very likely to do so.
4. Consider Whether or Not You Will Make Adjustments
While most standard door designs will pop right into your existing frame, there are some that will require extensive work to fit them into your house. French double doors are a good example of this. You can’t fit double doors in a standard doorway, and making a bigger frame requires you to demolish and rebuild the frame to accommodate the new door design.
This greatly increases your budget. Especially if you’re not qualified to DIY the project. So, you’ll want to weigh your budget and your willingness to make permanent alterations to your home against your desire to have one of those non-standard door designs.
5. Prioritize Features
There are three things you really want to look at and list in terms of priorities. This includes security, lighting, and visual appeal.
Maximizing security is going to require you to sacrifice quite a bit of natural lighting, because you don’t want massive glass panels taking up most of the door. However, lighting can improve the entire interior of your home and help you cut back on energy usage to insulated glass and not having to turn lights on as often. Visual appearance can affect practically every part of that.
Know your priorities, and use them to narrow down your selection by finding doors that match your top priority first.
6. List and Cut
A great way to start narrowing down your options is to go online, find a ton of doors that you love the look of, and list them.
Take some time to go over each one, and scratch out every door that doesn’t meet your needs, is out of budget, or otherwise isn’t close to a perfect match.
By the end, you should have a small list of doors that you can do in-depth comparisons between to find the right option.
7. Maintenance Requirements
This is one that a lot of people don’t consider, and then they wonder why their door looks worn and damaged just a few years into owning it.
Doors are not set-it-and-forget-it products. They all require various degrees of maintenance.
A fine hardwood door will need to be resealed and maybe even sanded every couple of years to continue looking its best and avoid warping.
Even an iron door needs to be painted and sealed to avoid discoloration and corrosion.
Understand the maintenance requirements and expected lifespan of each type of door you’re looking at, and make sure you’re willing to commit to that. This will help you make the most of your investment.
8. Consider Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency is a big topic nowadays. First, there is an increased interest in protecting the planet and helping minimize the use of natural resources and emissions creation. On top of that, it’s financially beneficial, and the most energy-efficient doors can pay for themselves in a matter of years with savings on your energy bills.
The material of the door matters, but the design and quality are more important. Energy-efficient versions of most door types exist. They’re also labeled most of the time. So, it’s easy to pick one that is energy efficient and provides these benefits.
9. Your Preferences Matter
Finally, you can’t forget what you like. Unless you’re fixing up a house to sell, you’re going to be using this door for years to come, and you should enjoy it. You can’t put your personal preferences to the side all the time for curb appeal and trends. You deserve to enhance your entryway with a front door that you want to see when you get home.
Check Out Our Door-Specific Guides
These are general tips on how to choose the best front door, but you’re probably not a door expert and don’t know what types exist. Don’t worry. We have in-depth guides covering all kinds of exterior and interior doors that you can dive through to help you understand the modern market.
Picking the perfect front door isn’t just about finding something that fits—it’s about choosing a door that feels right for your home. It’s the first thing guests see, the barrier between you and the outside world, and a part of your home’s personality.
By thinking about your budget, style, security, and even maintenance, you can narrow down the options and find a door that checks all the boxes. And don’t forget—this is your home. While trends and curb appeal matter, the most important thing is that you love the way your front door looks and feels every time you walk through it.
If you’re still unsure which type of door is right for you, don’t worry—we’ve got plenty of guides to help! Check out Door Digest for expert advice, inspiration, and everything you need to make the best choice for your home.
