With that said, I am having a hard time deciding on a front door design. Trying to reconcile so many factors like what is available, what is in budget, what is time period correct, and what is good for a rental, has me all confused on which direction to go. I first started looking for doors last week at the Nashville flea market. I found two beautiful doors I fell in love with. They had just the right amount of Victorian detail, and just a little bit of glass at the top of the door...they were perfect! Well, perfect until my dad pulled out the tape measure and delivered the bad news that they were only 32 inches instead of the 36 wide needed for a front door. The flea market wasn't a total bust. I loaded up on some great interior door deals, buying 9 doors for $160 total! That's less than $18 a door for period specific, solid hardwood doors!
Our loot all loaded up and ready to go home!
But back to the front door saga! Since I didn't find anything at the flea market, I then headed to a salvage yard this week and stumbled upon the door mecca. I mean seriously, there are rows and rows and stacks and stacks of doors. You can't even get to them all!
What is a girl to do in all this door madness??
Oh, and did you say you wanted windows? Yeah, they have that too...
This place must be a hoarder's kryptonite for sure.
Okay, I promise I'm getting to the door dilemma point...
The first door I found at this salvage yard was this one:
Front exterior of the door Interior, closer look at the glass panes
I love it. It's Victorian style, it has great detail, and seems to be very period appropriate to me. However, it does have more glass than I anticipated. The reason I was initially look for a door with very little glass is for safety and because this is still going to be a rental property for me, and I really don't want to be fixing broken glass. Speaking of broken glass, all three panes are cracked and would need to be replaced. I don't know how much that would cost or where to go get this done, AND to top it off, this is already the most expensive door in the salvage yard.
Here is another glass door I found
This door is faced with similar pros and cons to the one above, and if I had to chose, I like the 3 pane rounded one more.
Getting nervous about the glass, I started looking for solid door options and found these:
They are technically not period specific, probably built after 1930 (not 1910 like my house). However, they are cheaper and do not have any glass to deal with. I do like that they have some detail, which gives a nod to the very Victorian, detailed gingerbread trim traits.
The last option is this one:
This is a solid, period specific door (probably around 1910), but it is very plain with no detail. I should also note that I got interior doors that look like this for one of the units. I like the look, I was just looking for a little more curb appeal character for the front of the house.
What are your thoughts? Should I brave the glass for the period specific look I want? Or go with something solid?
