I have wanted a new front door for as long as I can remember. You may recall when I painted by beige builder-grade door a deep navy blue to quell my deeper design desires, but that only lasted so long. A coat of paint was a cheap upgrade but at the end of the day, it was the same old boring and dated, builder-grade door.

Before: An Attempted Change With Paint

As you can see, the door is oversized by nature, but the style along with the sidelight is just dated and tired. A coat of paint just couldn’t fix that. I knew we needed something more that would make a statement and add curb appeal in a real, lasting way.

Before & After: The Real Reveal

We decided to eliminate the sidelight entirely and just go with one large front door. This glass-panelled door from Lux Windows in Calgary, Alberta added the touch of west coast modern that our home needed. From start to finish of this project they were incredible to deal with – I would recommend them to anyone!

Inside: An Increase in Natural Light

One of my main issues with our original front door was how little natural light it let into our foyer. By eliminating the sidelight and adding a door that is effectively one large window. These photos haven’t been altered and were taken at the same time of day. Note: We had the interior of the door painted to match the trim and interior doors in the rest of our home.

True story: for the first few weeks, I kept looking in this direction and thinking that someone had left the door open because of the tremendous amount of light pouring into the space.

Outside: All The Curb Appeal

Increasing the door size to this width has made the entire entrance to our home feel more grand. Removing the sidelight not only updates the aesthetic of the space, it also allows for the door to feel more to scale than it did before (as opposed to a skinny dark rectangle).

I wanted to balance out the scale of the door on the right side of the front deck, so I added this large dark concrete planter (from HomeSense). If I could change the white details in the windows, I would!

We also decided to update the left pillar by cladding it with cedar. Originally it had been an angled pillar painted in the same deep grey as the window trim. We plan to build a cedar planter box in front of the deck rail to match. Stay tuned!