A Place for Family, a Place for Self (ARA) - Viewing page 1 of 2   Next >

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To create a true family home, there should be a balance of public areas and private retreats. While kitchens, living rooms and outdoor areas are usually areas of group interaction; bedrooms, bathrooms and hobby rooms can be areas dedicated to personal time. Since a home’s spaces can vary widely, one of the keys to effective home design is finding a way to tie these areas together.

Some of the new ways homes transition from room to room includes floor elevation changes, ceiling height differences or simply the way furniture may be arranged. But the oldest, and still most common way to move from one room to another is through a door. Fortunately, homeowners are no longer stuck with choosing the same, simple door throughout their home. There are hundreds of door choices today and it is common for a homeowner to use different types of doors throughout a single home.

Transitioning

In order to select doors that will work best for your home, consider what kind of transition you want between spaces. Looking to create complete privacy? Select a solid wood panel door. Looking to make a seamless transition from one room to the next? Try a French door or a door with a lot of glass. Looking for a formal feeling? Opt for a door with decorative accents like moulding, raised panels and hefty, ornamental hardware.

Let in the Light

One of the current trends in residential architecture is to open up a home with large windows or by grouping multiple windows together. This exposes a home to views and permits natural light to flow in. But what about rooms toward the center of the home or rooms that aren’t positioned well in relation to the sun?

French doors are a common solution. French doors come in a variety of designs from those that feature one large piece of glass to those that feature many smaller pieces of glass. And each design can be made with dozens of glass options.

Obscure glass options like frosted glass and reed glass let in light yet still provide privacy. In fact, French doors with obscure glass are a popular choice for private areas like bedrooms and bathrooms. To get an idea of the obscure glass options available, visit your local building retail center. If you have Internet access, a good resource for viewing a number of options on screen is www.simpsondoor.com; just click on “products” to find what option might work best for you.

Getting Decorative

Obscure glass is not the only non-clear glass option available to you. There is also decorative glass, sometimes referred to as art glass. This type of glass combines leading -- something typically used in stained glass windows or in front doors -- and smaller glass pieces of various sizes, colors and shapes. The lion’s share of decorative glass is used in period homes like Craftsman, Bungalow or Victorian-styled homes, but is becoming more common as homeowners attempt to differentiate their homes from their neighbors’.

Using decorative glass interior doors can create a sense of architectural consistency if the front door has decorative glass. And decorative glass is a good solution for matching other elements of the home like light fixtures, tile and hardware. The popularity of brushed silver and black metal used for hardware and lighting can be carried through to your doors by selecting decorative glass with silver or black leading.