We made a decision awhile ago to change our front entry door unit to one that would allow more light into our front entrance hall. We had made a design mistake from the start with the initial doors (even though they are gorgeous plank style fir doors). Our last home had four french doors with true divided lites that were just lovely to look at but left us feeling a little too exposed when someone came up to the door, so we went the opposite and installed solid double doors in this house – what were we thinking??

Anyway, after 10 years of our entry feeling too dark and closed off from the world, we knew we were ready to make a change. When we started discussing the new paint colours we realized that we should replace the doors before the painting got underway.

So, I’ll show you the before shot from both the inside and outside….

We chose to re-use the right hand door, being practical and because we do love these doors and just had the door company make us a new frame that included glass sidelites. We were even able to re-use the trims that surround the frame on both the interior and exterior. The change has made such a huge difference to the amount of light flooding the front hall and living room and has also softened the look to a more cottage like style.

This last photo should really have been taken from back further to have given the same look for judging against but I hadn’t remembered that the view I had taken awhile ago was from so far back. The sun was really too bright today (I’m not going to complain about that in December though!) and low in the sky to not have the strong shadow line cut the look of the door down. Another thing I am really liking with having a single door is how good the wreath looks, with double doors it looked lopsided to only hang one but awkward to have two, one on each door.

We are thrilled with the new look and only wish we had done it sooner! The new paint colour inside (BM Muslin CC110) has also lightened the areas beautifully, it wasn’t a huge change from what we had originally painted the walls and trim but it is amazing how much brighter I feel when in these rooms. I’ll show you the bathroom & bedroom in another post!