Your door - Designing the entry in your home

Here is a topic that rarely given enough thought into the custom home design ... the way to enter and exit your house. We were just talking about a door, right? A hole in the wall, in a manner and a way out, and what there is to be observed?

It is easy to overlook the design of the entrance to our house. We spend our time working on the design of the exterior and the creation of the rooms inside the house. But the front door and the connected areas take an important mediumGround between indoors and out, and laid the foundation for the success of the entire custom home design. The entry begins to establish personality of your home and suggests that the rest of the house should be like. The entry is a symbolic passage from the public space of the street to the private sphere of the family and telling the world something about the people inside.

If walls could talk

It is a cliché to say that in front of a house "provides aStatement ", but clichés usually have some basis in truth. The entry can be an obstacle or an invitation to be obvious or hidden, pompous or humble, can you name in, or it can keep you at arm's length. The front door are and the area around it, a message board for the neighborhood - hung with wreaths and ivy in the holidays, decorated with red, white and blue on the Fourth of July, and decorated with pumpkins and corn shocks on Halloween.

Every element, from which theHome access has something to say. The classic American porch is a good example, it is the outdoor social center, a place for the activity of the street, a place to meet and greet neighbors and friends to see. A porch is an outdoor space, neither public nor private, and completely to facilitate the transition into and out of the house. A house with a big, wide porch telling the world that the family values within the social fabric of the street, neighbors and invitingFriends and invites them to stop and visit.

The entry sequence

But the porch to create only one part of a sequence of spaces and elements is a transition from public space (road) to the private sector (the house). This sequence includes walks, landscaping, stairs, porches, overhangs, lighting, doors and interior entry spaces. A successful entry sequence to each other holds the placement and design of all these elements and their relationshipother.

The entry into a home starts long before you stepped on the property. It begins in the street with the first visual cues - where the entrance to the property is and where the entrance to the house is.

At first glance from the street, entering the house should be seen or at least hinted to a clear destination for our guests. Our old friend of the porch is a great way to see clearly where the entrance is found. A porch orOverhang at the entrance to keep your guests from the weather while they wait for you to have to answer the door.

A path from the street or access road should jump to the front door - people unconsciously look ahead as they approach a building, to search for the shortest path to the entrance. The beginning of the path should be well lit so that it can be found in the dark, and should be wide enough for two people to go comfortably side by side. This is also a great place for colorfulLandscaping. In temperate and cold climates, leave areas open to shoveling snow near the footpath, without burying the planting beds can be stacked.

A little secret is not a bad idea, even here - vary the direction of the path a little, they change the landscape and the front door moves in and out of sight.

It is a house, not a Greek temple

Historically, gave the design of a home's accession to the public an indication of the wealth and the status of their owners. TheGrand entrances to buildings are often backed by huge classical columns, ornately carved doors of their surrounds framed. But if more modest homes to take up these subjects, they often feel out of place and forced. An entry can all too easily seen from the street, looks too bold (as if it were an entrance to an office building), and draining all the heat from the entry sequence.

Better to change the entry on a human scale design, with familiar elements, does not overwhelm Visitors. Benches, small windows, potted plants, brick paths and porch railings all contribute to the comfort of our guests, we want to feel like they are welcome in our homes.

The human scale should continue on the other side of the door. Although some larger homes are adequately equipped with double curved staircase, four hundred square meters, entrance halls, overwhelm these characteristics of a typical family house. Entry halls and foyers should welcome the guests, enabling them to orient themselves, the> House, a place to hang their coats, and direct them efficiently to the "public" rooms of the house. There is a place for the splendor and majesty, of course, but it is best to leave the grand houses.

Hey, I did not invent the stuff to ...

Other cultures also high on the design of a house entrance. The ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui dictates exactly where a house outside the door should be to attract good chi (energy) and block harmful chi.It is a complex relationship between compass location, proximity to other structures, roads and paths, access to sunlight and views to the outside. According to Feng Shui, a well-placed and well designed front door can improve happiness, promotes business success and increase the health of residents. Although deeply rooted in the ancient culture, a lot of good Feng Shui design practice, simply that we exit the design of the ways we give and you can use our own homes.

WelcomeHome To ... Your laundry?

Although the introduction of the automobile has profound implications for the way in which we had entered our homes, it was the popularization of the attached garage in the middle of the 20th Century, which finally banished the traditional front door and porch to ceremonial status. Ironically, we rarely use the impressive entries we build our houses. We are pleased to provide our own garage by the house - often through a laundry room or mudroom. Is whatWe have been working so hard? Entree Providing experiences for our few visitors or leave the annual meeting, as we trudge daily through the dirty laundry? The owners of the house they should be welcomed are welcomed into her sanctuary from an area to make to recognize it and recognize it is as the reason.

On a recent pre-design tour through a transformation of the clients at home, the client and I entered through the garage and laundry room, moving aside bikesto get toys, baskets and dirty clothes in the kitchen. She had not realized it, but I suggested that we examine, rework, as it enters her house as part of the redesign. She agreed, and the result is a small but well equipped "Owner's hall" directly out of the garage and connection to the kitchen and breakfast room. The laundry and mudroom adjacent but insulated from this entry. She's already told me how much she enjoys the new space and how it brightenstheir mood at the end of the day.

Knock, knock ...

But what about the front door itself? The front door is both a bridge and a barrier. If it is large, small, opaque, transparent, rectangular or arched? I prefer a large door far enough to the movers happy - at least 42 cm wide. Because the door will be used every day, durability and resistance to weather damage are important. A bit of glass in the door allows allows the residents to seesomebody outside of the stranger, without a view of the interior. A lot of glass in the door is less private, but brings more light from the outside.

Although a wooden door is vulnerable to damage from the elements, it always looks better than metal or fiberglass imitations. And when properly protected by an overhanging roof, a quality wood door should last the life of the house.

Opening and closing of the Case

The front door is a part of many elementsMake that an entry design. A successful entry sequence begins in the public space of the street and moving through a sequence of rooms on the way to the private area of the house. The design of the entry communicates with the surroundings and is suitable in size for the rest of the house.

The "hole-in-the-wall" is much more than one way and one way out.

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