By Sarah J. Dills, Cincinnati Housetrends
The world revolves around first impressions—the first day of school, love at first sight, and the first job interview. With so much in life pending on those initial moments, it makes sense that more and more homeowners are focusing on the entryways to their homes.
Think of your house as yourself—the way you would be before a first date or a job interview. You probably wouldn’t show up wearing a T-shirt with rust stains and a pair of paint-splattered pants. Why should your front door be any different? It is the gateway to your home, and it is the first thing welcoming guests to step inside.
Customizing curb appeal
Because of the boom in the home building and real estate industries over the last decade, a new term has been introduced into mainstream culture—curb appeal. What was once thought of as a concrete slab, usually cracked, with a boxwood on each side leading to a plain, six-paneled front door is now deemed an unacceptable way for visitors to be ushered into homes.
Therma-Tru, one of the leaders in entry door manufacturing, recently completed a study to determine the impact of curb appeal on homes. The study showed that strong curb appeal adds approximately six percent, or $24,000, to the perceived value of homes. The market of companies manufacturing entry doors has stepped up the game to meet the demands of consumers seeking curb appeal. One of the largest changes in the industry has been the variety of doors available to homeowners.
Sara Theis, senior public relations manager for Therma-Tru, says homeowners are now demanding that their entryway match the architectural style of their home. Due to this demand, Therma-Tru now carries product lines specific for Southwestern, Arts & Crafts and Classic American architecture. “When customers are in the process of selecting an entry door, we usually try to point them toward the overall architecture of their home,” Theis says. “We tell them to take some time to visualize how the door will look on the home, and it always helps to have a professional in the process.”
Marvin Windows and Doors is another company that is offering a multitude of architectural styles to their customers. Marvin entry doors come in seven door design styles. The Artistic doors include embossing and engraving that can showcase logos, family crests and other unique details. Traditional doors are simply elegant with clean, uncluttered lines, and the Classic doors feature soft curves and elaborate glass designs.
Theis says that customized glass designs are becoming more and more popular in today’s market. “We’ve seen a large trend in decorative glass. People love the natural light streaming through their entry.” Theis adds that sidelites, windows located on either side of the door, and transoms, windows located above the door, have become more popular as well.
Marvin entry doors also offer unique, custom options. “Marvin entry doors offer homeowners significant flexibility when customizing their entryway,” says company business manager John Simpson. “In addition to the seven architectural styles listed in our catalog, Marvin entry doors have virtually unlimited custom capabilities for wood carving, unique architectural designs, and decorative and patterned glass. We can also accommodate unique configurations of sidelites and transom windows, such as roundtops, to complete your entry system.”
A door isn’t just a door
Despite the consumers’ desire to match their entry door to the architectural style of the home, one of the most important decisions facing homeowners is what material they want for their door. Three of the most popular materials are wood, fiberglass and steel.
Therma-Tru creates half of their entry doors from fiberglass and half of their entry doors from steel. “Fiberglass is ideal over wood and steel because it doesn’t dent, stain or rust,” Theis says. “It is low maintenance, and it only needs a top coat every few years.”
On the other end of the selection spectrum, Marvin entry doors are constructed from wood in Honduras. A homeowner might select wood over fiberglass or steel because they feel that man-made products can never replace the natural beauty of wood. “Marvin entry doors bring together old-world craftsmanship and modern millwork manufacturing—enabling homeowners to perfectly enhance or customize their entryways to match the architectural style of their home and their lifestyles,” Simpson says. Available wood species include Honduran Mahogany, Honduran Cedar, White Oak, Walnut and Cherry.
Kolbe & Kolbe, another leader in door manufacturing, merges materials in their entry doors. One of the company’s specialties is an entry with aluminum on the exterior and wood on the interior. This allows homeowners to enjoy the luxury of wood while maintaining the durability of aluminum. “If durability is a concern, homeowners might tend to lean toward the aluminum doors,” says Lance Premeau, product manager with Kolbe & Kolbe. “It is sometimes a regional decision.” Although the company manufactures doors with multiple materials, they also offer all wood and all fiberglass doors.
Surviving the elements
Due to different natural elements, some entry doors are more popular in certain areas of the country. Premeau says that he would recommend certain guidelines for finishing and staining all wood entry doors depending on the region. However, he would probably recommend fiberglass or extruded aluminum in the southeast due to heat, humidity and hurricanes.
Therma-Tru offers a Tru Defense series of entry doors that are targeted for the coastal region. Theis says these doors could be used anywhere in the country for their durability.
The bigger, the better
Not only are the demands on manufacturers to produce more customized entry doors growing, so are the doors themselves. The size of the average entry door has grown 7 square feet. “In our markets, the homes just keep getting larger and larger,” says Premeau. “People know that the entryway is a prominent point of the home.” Larger homes require larger doors to keep the proportion even, and the average 6-foot, 8-inch door looks dwarfed by a home with 20-foot ceilings in the foyer.
With larger, customized doors come larger price tags. Premeau says entry doors at Kolbe & Kolbe can cost as much as $15,000. “Knowing that the entry door is the focal point of the home, people tend to put more money in that area.” However, Premeau also says that there are entry doors available for $1,000. The price really depends on the customization.
Selecting the entry door is only the first task in producing a winning entryway to the home. All of the additional accessories have to be selected while keeping with the same architectural style of the home and door. Doorbells, coach lights, customized doorknobs, kick plates and engraved nameplates are all additions to the entry door.
“Kolbe offers a hardware line to coordinate with each of our entry door styles, but we also recognize that there are people who are very particular about their hardware,” Premeau says. “Some customers want to coordinate their fixture throughout the entire house, and they want to extend that theme outdoors.”