Our New Front Door: Before and After

I can honestly say it’s the best £1000 we’ve ever spent. We’ve never had a huge budget for doing up this house, but to spend 1/6 of that on getting rid of the old UPVC door and transforming our homes curb appeal was definitely the best decision we ever made. I absolutely hated our old door, and I hate to admit I’m this shallow, but it genuinely made me feel embarrassed about the house.

We’d worked so hard on transforming the interiors, but 95% of people only ever saw that horrible plastic white thing more akin to a static caravan home than a Victorian cottage in the beautiful South Downs National Park. I remember our first Christmas in the village, taking Darcey for a little walk in the pram to get some fresh air and coming home to Matt exclaiming ‘I swear we have the only UPVC door in the WHOLE village, everyone has beautiful Christmas wreaths on their beautiful Farrow and Ball doors and ours is just BLEURGH!!!’ (You may come to realise I’m never one to understate my feelings…)

And of course, it doesn’t matter what everyone else has got on their front door but the main point was, UPVC has never been my taste and growing up with a Dad as a forester who promotes all things wood, all the time, definitely had an influence on that sometimes overtly strong opinion. I believe wood has so much more character, depth and texture, it’s more natural and timeless, there are so many colour options and of course, it’s one hundred percent more in tradition with the age of the house.

After using up our small budget on what’s going on within the four walls of this home, we waited a year before having the funds to change the front door and it was worth the excruciating wait (I am also not very patient) as it really does lift my spirits every time I walk up the path.

We used a local carpenter who had installed a friend’s new door and despite a few delays due to his busy schedule we were really pleased with the final result. He recommended a reasonably priced range of doors from Howden’s and I got to choose the design, the glass type and of course, the door furniture. I was keen to maintain privacy as well as increase the amount of light in the hallway, so I absolutely love the bigger windows this door has. In fact, when it was first installed I would often be found standing in our dining room, thinking that someone had left the front door open again as there was so much light streaming in that I wasn’t used to.

To keep the job on budget, I painted it myself once it had been hung. Thankfully the timing worked out well as we had lots of sunny weather during the process, but we did find it quite difficult to factor into our days as normally we do all our DIY in the evenings when the girls are in bed, which was obviously not an option as we had to leave the door open for up to 6 hours afterwards!

We used Little Greene Paint Company for the door (see full details in The Source List below) which wasn’t the cheapest of options but the quality was fantastic and it was really easy to apply. The smallest tin you can buy is a 1L so I have about half a pot left of each colour which I am excited to use on another project at some point. Altogether, it took the carpenter a day and a half so the job didn’t feel particularly intrusive and obviously it was well worth it! We also used the opportunity to repaint the porch and the hooks that have been there since we moved in, which I updated by using the same paint as the interior side of the door.

We purposefully didn’t want an interior or exterior handle as I wanted to keep the door sleek and simple. The door can be closed from the outside by using the small pully under the top lock which probably isn’t the most user friendly system (we’ve found people often grab the door knocker when they’re leaving which then moves in their hand and makes for a slightly clumsy door close) but we’ve got used to using the door pully ourselves and I like how everything is completely out of reach from the children. As always though, I’ll be making a mental note of that for next time we change a front door! I am attempting to grow some bright pink roses up the wall next to it, but for now, I’ll settle with our neighbours wisteria which always steals the show.

I really think the new door has helped transform the front of our home. They say first impressions are important and I’d like to think our bright yellow door gives passersby a hint of our personality with its cheerful, stylish and ‘not taking itself too seriously’ vibe. I now have a home I’m proud of and don’t feel like I need to apologise for the UPVC every time some one pops by for a visit. Our neighbour said it brings a smile to his face every time he walks up the road, so I’d say that’s ‘mission accomplished’, wouldn’t you?

THE SOURCE LIST:

Front Door ‘Richmond Glazed’ from Howdens, approx £300; Carpenter Local, approx £500; Paint (exterior) Intelligent Exterior Eggshell 1L in ‘Mister David’ by Little Greene Paint Company, £32; Paint (Interior) Intelligent Exterior Eggshell 1L in ‘Delicate Blue by Little Greene Paint Company, £32; Door Knocker Aged Brass Lion’s Head from Willow and Stone, £39; Letter Box from a selection on eBay, £26; Locks and Door Pull from a selction on eBay, £15; Number 6 Decal in White Outline Shadow by The Fanlight Number Company, £15