How to Find a Brisbane Front Door that Feels Like Home

When you come home from work every day, return from your weekend errands, or come back from visiting neighbours, what’s the first thing you really see about your home? It’s the front door of your home and simply having it in your sights reminds you that you’re almost home to your favourite chair, veranda, and loved ones. After a long hard day, nothing is more comforting than the sight of your home front door and sometimes when you see it, you can already feel that hot shower waiting for you or taste the emergency bad-day ice cream you stashed for just this occasion. In other words, your front door feels like home even when you’re not all the way inside yet.

But what about when it’s time to replace your front door? Whether the original was damaged, worn out, or you simply wanted to include it in this year’s home improvement wave, the question arises: How will you choose a new front door? Naturally, you want one that makes you feel just as welcome and safe, but you probably don’t want an exact duplicate. After all, why replace if not to also improve? You flip through catalogues and walk through home improvement stores looking for that door that makes you think ‘home’ the moment you see it but you can’t quite settle on a design, colour, or material because nothing seems quite right; you may need to stop the random search and do a little self-searching for what the right door really means and looks like to you.

What Feels Like Home

A front door needs to feel like home. For most people, this happens naturally over time as you see your front door leading into your home over and over again. But this is your opportunity to choose a front door that doesn’t just remind you of home, it actually looks, feels, and even swings open like how you think the concept of “Home” should look and feel in the real world. You may be having trouble making up your mind about the door because you haven’t fully realised in yourself what the door to your ideal home looks like yet. We’re here to help you figure out the answer to both questions and determine the perfect new door for your house.

The Front Door of Your Childhood

For most of us, nostalgia plays a huge part in what we feel that home should be like. Childhood is usually where your happiest and most personality-shaping memories come from. Close your eyes or pull out a photo album and take a walk down memory lane. Where did you live as a child? What did the house look like and, more importantly to this project, what did the front door look like? This is the door you came home from school to every day. Behind it are all your favourite toys, your private stash of candy, your loving family, and your childhood pets. Every time you saw your childhood front door, it made another groove in your mind that said “This is what home is supposed to be like”. Find a picture of your old front door or sketch it from memory to give you a guide for the kind of door your nostalgia will guide you to.

If you lived in multiple places as a child, as many of us did, or if you perhaps remember a grandparent or aunt’s house with great fondness and familiarity, include these doors in your search as well. Any door you have a strong childhood connection to will influence what you feel a home’s front door should look and feel like.

The Front Door of Your Dream House

Now we’re going to get a little strange, but trust us. We know doors. Close your eyes again and imagine the home of your dreams. Not your ‘dream home’ as they say in the real estate industry, but the one that you have actually dreamed of. It may sound silly, but most people have a house somewhere in their mind that feels more like home than any house that has ever existed in reality. You may have dreamed of visiting it as a child or even in later years if you still dream vividly from time to time. What does this house’s door look like? If you’re having trouble seeing it clearly, ask yourself a few defining questions.

• Does it have windows or is it solid with an indented pattern?
• Is it a frosted glass door, a big heavy timber door, or perhaps even double French doors?
• What kind of handles does it have?
• What colour is the door?

Once you have an image in your mind of the kind of house you dream about when you dream, do your best to sketch this door as well. This is most likely what your subconscious feels that the perfect home’s front door looks like and includes features you’ll be looking for whether or not you realise it.

The Door Your Home Needs

The next step takes us back into the real world, talking about real doors that exist and will stand in your real doorway for decades. While you want a door that looks perfect and feels like home, you need a door that fits your frame and is well-suited to the atmosphere and weather of the region you live. For Brisbanites who live in a fairly humid region of Australia, you’re probably looking for an Aluminium or Composite Fibreglass door material because wood tends to swell and shrink in response to humidity variations which can lead to sticking or gaps in your weather stripping. If you do have your heart set on timber, take a moment to consider Composite Fibreglass which can mimic timber so well even experts can’t tell the difference without kicking it. There is also the option of aluminium doors that have a wood-grain finish.

Making That Door a Reality

Finally, once you understand the doors you’re dreaming of that are getting in the way of making decisions about doors you look at today, you have the opportunity to design the perfect front door that will look like home to you every time you approach from inside or out. Remember, you don’t have to buy a pre-made door made to someone else’s design as long as you can describe the combined elements you want in your new front door. Want classic Heritage style windows and a brass lever handle that curls at the end, or a door with flowers frosted into long vertical windows? These are entirely possible. All you need is a door manufacturer willing to put all the pieces together for you.

Here at Parkwood, finding the door of your dreams is our business. You can pick and choose the elements of your new door from a wide variety of options and pieces so that you can be sure your new front door matches what you’ve been dreaming of. Let us help you find a new front door that feels like home.