Entry Doors - The Traditional Classic

Posted by: Ken Mariotti

Colonial - Homeguides.sfgate.com

What’s the right entry door for a traditional style house? It depends on which traditional style house you live in or plan to build. Traditional style means long established or customary and is the most common style in our area. Traditional is a broad term compromising many styles including Federal, Gothic Revival or Queen Anne.

When we describe a home as traditional we’re often referring to either a common style historically prevalent in our region, such as Colonial, Georgian or Cape Cod, or likewise, we may be referring to the specific classic features such as symmetrical windows, Greek shapes or a portico. What’s common to this type of home is that it has a timeless design with historical roots.

When shopping for an entry door for your traditional style home, it’s important to be clear about which style you’re trying to capture. Since most traditional home entries feature a decorative surround, focus on selecting a door to compliment and illuminate that feature of the home.

Balanced Symmetry

French Revival -Jefferybrianfisher.com

When planning a traditional front entry pay special attention to how you’ll create symmetry. Will you have plants, glass, lights, ornamental trim or some other artifact adorning either side of the entry door? The door needs to appear balanced with each element carefully placed and scaled to match the rest of your home’s exterior.

Six-panel - Pinterest

Solid Door

The most common traditional door style is made of wood with rail-and-stile construction with raised panels. Panels are quite suitable to Colonial, Federal, Cape Cod or Georgian styles. If you’re designing a French or Spanish Revival you’ll want to consider plank door styles, which elongates and simplifies the lines of the door. The tongue-and-groove look emulates plank doors, but usually is built using rail-and-stile to ensure greater performance. Victorian, Queen Anne or Ranch home styles often use a French or flat-slab door.

Transom and Sidelites

Victorian - Therma-Tru Doors

Bring light into the entry hall by adding a transom above or sidelites flanking the door. Glazing, the glass, should match your home’s windows. Let’s say that your grid pattern is a colonial style traditional. It’s likely six-panes of glass, separated by muntins in both the top and bottom window panels. Your transom would also have six-panes of glass with muntins and your sidelite divided glass panes would each match the size of one of the window panes. If you have Victorian style windows you can repeat the diamond-patterned grids.

Just because you have a traditional style home doesn’t mean your entry door is the same as every other traditional entry door. Using this traditional style guide you can create your own look from our manufacturer’s traditional style doors: Therma-Tru, Jeld-Wen, Simpson, Andersen, and Marvin.

Entry Doors - The Contemporary Look

Posted by: Ken Mariotti

Marvin Website

You say modern, I say contemporary and some say industrial to describe today’s contemporary home style. Contemporary means todays style and todays style is indeed a cross of modern and industrial, so we’re all right.

If you’re building a contemporary style home or remodeling your existing home and want an up to date look, remember the entry door is a key element of the design. The right contemporary door screams, look at me, I stand out from the crowd.

The contemporary look strives to connect the indoor and outdoor spaces, so it’s common to use glass, tall or wider openings for the entry door design. Modern and industrial style eliminates ornamentation or excessive detailing, so that doors without panels and are likely to be flush with plain facings on both the inside and outside door frames. This bold simplicity can be achieved in multiple ways by following some simple principles of contemporary door design.

Jeld Wen Pivot Door

Taller and Wider

Contemporary entry doors are commonly taller and wider than ordinary doors, creating a sleek profile that seamlessly blends into the home’s design. An example of these sleek profiles are pivot door systems like the Jeld Wen example shown in the photo. These doors are designed to handle the weight of taller and wider entry doors. The weight of the door is carried at the top and bottom rather than on traditional hinged jambs. The effect of what appears to be a floating door is dramatic. The taller and wider effect is also achieved using overhead transoms and sidelites.

Thinner Profiles

Hue Interiors Translucent Glass

Strong clean lines define the sash, casings or trim giving the door a crisp look. Today’s French entry doors, by Marvin and Andersen offer thinner profiles and contemporary finishes. Contemporary homes are designed to connect the outdoors with the indoors by using fewer interior walls to create uninterrupted views. Designers frequently specify glass doors in order to optimize the views and connections between the interior and exterior. For privacy, consider translucent glass such as textured or frosted to still allow natural light into your home.

Koch Interiors Industrial Design

Industrial Design

Mixing materials like wood, aluminum, steel, utility hardware and color to create an industrial design can create a powerful look. For instance, use an aluminum frame with a wood or painted steel door to create contrast. Or use industrial grade hardware to make a bold statement. Industrial design is the art and craft of selecting products and systems that optimize function, value and appearance – it’s key to achieving the look of a contemporary style entry door.

When you’re ready to remodel or build your contemporary style home, Woodland can help you create the look without breaking the budget. Bring your dream and we’ll show you how to achieve it.

Entry Doors - The Craftsman

Posted by: Ken Mariotti

Pinterest Craftsman Home

Chicagoans claim the craftsman style home as a part of our heritage – after all, Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the fathers of the architectural movement. The style, circa 1890’s, popular into 1930, is enjoying a revival today.

Whether you’re fortunate enough to own an old original craftsman style home or are building a new home, the craftsman entry door is a key architectural element to focus on.

The craftsman door is almost always reached by way of a porch, which accentuates the door’s uniqueness. Craftsman doors are interesting contrasts of simple lines, warm woods, understated flat casings, decorative glass panes and a classically ornamental dentil shelf.

Simpson Doors Warm Wood

Warm Woods

Homeowners can select less expensive painted fiberglass or steel doors to compliment a craftsman style home, yet an all wood door creates an unmatched striking focal point. Good design always creates focal points that allow the eye to naturally absorb the view. Without a focal point, the eyes wander and the brain struggles.

The craftsman home is perfect for a wood door because of the protected porch entrance. Although wood is a great insulator and can withstand harsh weather, it needs an enduring finish and a building overhang for protection. Wood doors by Simpson can be used in tough exposures as long as they are made of especially weather-resistant woods such as: Douglasfir, Sapele Mahogany and Nootka Cypress.

he beauty of wood is that no two pieces look exactly the same. The grain patterns, color variations and textures create a work of art.  Frankly, it’s a stark contrast from a painted fiberglass or steel door, which can appear flat and lifeless in comparison. There are places for the less costly door; a wood craftsman entry door is the place to splurge.

Glass Panes

Therma Tru Doors with Sidelites

It’s not uncommon for entry doors to be placeholders in an architect’s design. Meaning its definition will be provided later. In the craftsman style this is often so the architect or designer can line up the views from the entry to a focal point inside the house.  This might be an interior wall or an exterior back yard.

The craftsman style entry door typically has glass in the upper door, sidelites or in a transom above the door. Well positioned, glass can bring natural day light to a dark foyer or let the moon and street light glow, flood the entry at night. If security is a concern consider glass transoms.

Simplicity and Originality

Jeld Wen Dutch Door

The American craftsman style was a response to the ornate Victorian style homes that were common at the time. It stood in stark contrast to the highly decorated eclectic Victorian. Adopting an arts and crafts artistic sensibility, the style typically uses local handcrafted glass, wood and metal work. The colors are usually a natural palette so that the homes blend with nature. You might find the Dutch door an original interpretation of the traditional craftsman door.

Imagination

If an all-wood door is outside the limits of your budget, don’t despair. Check out doors by Therma-Tru for fiberglass doors that mimic wood. Or if you love painted doors, check out the options for wood, fiberglass or steel painted doors by Jeld Wen in a variety of colors. Or if space allows you can create a double door entrance. Beauty lies in variation, so use your imagination to get the craftsman look on any budget.

Are Your New Windows Sustainable?

Posted by: Ken Mariotti

Windmills in the back yard, rain barrels under gutters, and concrete front lawns, it’s looking like more homeowners are joining the sustainability movement. Sometimes these obvious efforts to do the right thing can seem extreme. When it comes to home building or remodeling, sustainability starts by critically thinking about how windows affect a home’s overall climate.

Windows typically comprise 10-25% of a home’s exterior wall area, and in a climate like ours, they can account for 35-50% of the heating and cooling needs of the home.

When you’re ready to remodel or build a new home talk to architects and builders who understand sustainable design and enlist them to help you create a three step balanced approach to sustainability.

            Step One: Start with Design Principles

            Step Two: Select High Performance Windows

            Step Three: Build with Integrity

Design Principles

Marvin Windows

A good architect or designer will focus on your thermal comfort, in our case, living in an extreme climate. A good design reduces the need for heating and air conditioning and uses construction materials, especially windows that help balance the thermal load. In other words, flooring, ceilings, window sizes and framing materials, shading and other choices interact in ways that lower thermal loads. The goal is for your home to require less heating and cooling to maintain comfortable conditions.

Designers who understand these principles will choose designs and products that are best suited for your home. They will orient windows so as to optimize light and the warmth, while neutralizing the suns overall affect on your home’s temperature. For example, sparingly place windows on the east and west facades, and maximize the window placement on the south side of your home. The design will provide natural ventilation by strategically placing windows on both sides of the house to create cross-ventilation or layouts, like ceiling level hoppers that capture cooling breezes in the summer.

High Performance Windows

Marvin Windows for Ventilation

Advances in window technology, such as double pane and low-e coatings, substantially reduce heat loss and control heat gain. The performance contrast between new windows and the original single glass panes that you may have in your old home is drastic. Imagine that all these years, all you had separating you from the Chicago winter was a single pane of quarter-inch glass. Whether you choose wood, fiberglass, vinyl or aluminum, modern window frame conductivity outperforms anything you’ve known before.

Consult the standardized ratings for Solar heat gain coefficients (SHGC) and U-values provided by the NationalFenestration Rating Council (NFRC) and Energy Star Labels, but remember that while ratings are important, they shouldn’t be the driving factor for the window choices. Features like thermal performance can add to condensation problems for instance, so that interior humidity and climate also need to be considered. Don’t rely on one value over all others; rather take the entire balanced design into consideration when choosing new windows.

Build Smart

Marvin Upper Transoms

The success of your design and product choices relies on building and installation techniques. High performance windows need to be installed according to the manufacturer’s instructions so as not to diminish the energy performance, not to mention, damage the window unit or surrounding walls. Homeowners should expect the builder to follow key guidelines to the highest standards.

• Meet all codes
• Properly size rough opening allowing for expansion and movement
• Install window unit level, plumb, and square
• Maintain the continuity of the weather-resistant barrier
• Insulate all voids between the window and wall with expanding foam (minimum rate)
• Maintain the integrity of air and vapor retarders
• Only apply caulks and sealants that are compatible with the substrate

The best measure of sustainability is building something right the first time.