First Impressions.

Eventually, one day, we would like for our house to make a good first impression. Right now, it says "Ew, good thing no one lives there". If you will recall, the house looked like this when we bought it.

We did a bit of demo and removed the storm door and surrounding frame and then propped our new old double doors in place.

We are finally moving forward towards what we consider the first real improvement to the front of the house and plan to have the doors installed soon. Before they go in there are a few decisions to be made. Things we, of course, have been thinking about for months and months. So, similar to past moments of indecision, we are hoping someone out there might weigh in. Help us out. Pick one already! This is what we've got.

Hardware? I think we have narrowed it down to these two single cylinder mortise locks. The finish is oil rubbed bronze, which to my understanding should age over time. The differences between the two are thrilling, I know, but that's what we've got. #1 Baltimore. #2 Reading.



Ok, I admit it. The decision is not that easy. You see, we have been planning to sand these doors down and stain them. It seems this could be quite a difficult undertaking. When the new hardware is installed it will actually need to be raised slightly so that bending down to open the door will not be required. That's only a mild exaggeration, it's pretty low. So, to do this, the old mortise hole will be filled in and the new one moved up. Apparently making the patch look good enough to stain nicely is a job for a skilled cabinet maker. Which we are not. Yet. Ha. Then on top of that, apparently the application of marine varnish can be tricky. Sooooo, do we just paint the door? Or maybe paint the outside and stain the inside?

Other things to factor in would be that we plan to do the landing in mahogany similar to this:

And as of today the plan is to reside the house using Hardieplank, in this color:


The trim color is TBD.

So, if we paint the door, what color do we go with? And yes, I do realize I'm not giving any options...because I have no clue. I guess a trip for some swatches is in order? Still. Help! Blue? Red? Green? Yellow?