Doors and Doorway Impact (for the home)

A front door is the first impression visitors get going into your home, so therefore I don't think they should be neglected or done cheaply. My friend had this idea of documenting beautiful door ways on Instagram, similar to the various accounts dedicated to floors and unusual tiles, but I am not sure she got around to this. I love walking around different places spotting 'good doors' whether it is the colour the door has been painted, the grandeur, the coloured decorative glass, the panelling, the frame, a decorative touch such as a lovely knocker, knob, handle, or letter box ... I could go on about all the traits to a perfect door.

The lovely house in the photograph above is situated just around the corner from me. I can't remember the front door being any colour but that gorgeous buttery yellow. It looks so fresh and lovely, a bright flash of colour against the brick, if that house had a white front door it would not have this impact. A yellow door wouldn't work on every house though, but it certainly does for this one. I remember reading in an interview with Damien Hirst one of his earliest creative memories was his Mum painting spots on the front door, which is very different. Patterned front doors are not very common, maybe they should be, and Hirst's Mother is very much ahead of her time.

Should you match your front door and window frame colours? No and yes, both can work. You can 'get away' with a brighter, louder front door to window frames and as long as the colours match or coordinate it should work. Above is our door (we don't have a 'front' door), we got inspiration for this on the streets of Oxford. We saw a beautiful stone cottage with dark navy on the window frames and front door. Instead we opted for a greyer shade of navy, but our window frames are a rich cream shade, we haven't fully committed Previously we have had a dark minty green window frames and door, then more of an olive shade of green now blue grey. The wreath isn't our Christmas one, my Grandma made it for us, isn't it pretty?

Different places hold the varied architecture styles which then influences the home's exterior decoration. The variation of architecture, decor and of course front doors in different countries, counties or even different areas of a city is amazing. On a day out around around London, you can turn out of a street then you are greeted with a whole new style of building completely different to where you were before. Above shows the pastel coloured homes in Notting Hill (unfortunately I couldn't find the one with a blue front door...). The face of these houses are confidently painted a bright block colour, sometimes they have a matching door, other times they are a plain black with white window frames. I really love the baby pink door against the grey in the photograph on the top right.

Around the corner from the bright Notting Hill houses, in Kensington there are streets of very grand monochrome black and white houses uniform houses which are a total contrast to Notting Hill. Each door is black and the window frames are white, This is because it is a conservation area with extremely strict rules about these homes to preserve and protect them in this luxurious area.

In contrast to all of the other beautiful painted doors above, here is a fabulously striped back wooden door I saw on an Island in Croatia, the different layers of paint and the texture is wonderful. Truly authentic! Obviously this door won't last in this condition, I hope it gets lovingly restored to it's former glory.

Finally the most grandest door of them all - to halls of residence at Cambridge University. Ok not a house door which the main focus for this post is on, but it does lead to where student's consider home in their term time. This feels more like a door to a castle than student accomodation. All of the images in this post are photographs I have taken on my travels, I could have included many more of gone down the route of taking other peoples images off Pinterest and Instagram, however I would be here all night. There is a lot more that I can discuss regarding door ways, there will be part 2 and part three coming up over the next few months I am sure.

#door #home #window #city #london #nottinghill #kensington