The Front Door of Perception

I moved into a smaller, more modern, and utterly different house about four months ago. Since then, improvements have been bumping along. We repainted the interior, removing the blinding and clashing color palette (marigold yellow and hyacinth purple, anyone?), and replacing it with a more beachlike, neutral paint job. Changing out the doorknobs from cheapy brass apartment style ones to slightly more expensive stainless steel globe knobs made a sizable difference (such a little change, such a big impact).

Before we get started on the kitchen (by Ikea. We need clean and affordable, not custom and fancy), I decided to fix something that's eaten at me since the day we bought the house: the front door. Here's what the front door looked like before:

Yes, those are paint chips taped to the front door.

Doesn't this fit right in?

Ugly, pedestrian, and most certainly doesn't jibe with a modern, clean lined house. Here's the old doorknob:

It's yea Olde Knob.

I had plenty of ideas for a new door (and the new door project was funded by my grandmother, who demanded that her generous housewarming check not be used for moving expenses; she wanted to see her gift in action). After endless online searching, I found Crestview Doors, a small company based in Austin, TX that makes modernist doors with strategically placed windows. I fell in love with the Burbank, and realized that Crestview offers a Doorlite door window kit you can buy to turn any plain door into that modernist gateway of your dreams. So that's what I did. We ordered the kit, bought the door, had the windows installed, the door hung, the hardware purchased from Rejuvenation, and finally painted the whole thing one screaming bright shade.



I'm so happy with the results!

The shape of the cut out windows evokes the shape of the living room windows.

Yes, it's bright. It's making us smile every time we come home.

We added classic mid century modern star power.