Where Will The Front Door Go?

Jama, sweetheart, you're quickly becoming my favorite real state rep round here in Hubpages. Laugh! I swear, you had me guffawing like a hyena with your front door recount. Paint a fake one, indeed!

In a less joking mode: I'm of the opinion that many people don't reflect about their real needs when buying or building a house, they just "go with the flow". I mean, they reproduce the supposedly "acceptable" house concept, but don't give any thought to whether they actually need a front door hall or not, and whether that space wouldn't be better used for, say, a storage room. Oh well, I have strong opinions on all of this but I'll get off my soapbox now :-) Besos!

Very good hub my dear, as usual. Very important tips here, and nevah leave out your humor my dear Jama. Thanks now.

this makes me wonder, is the front door the last architectural detail that is either planned or drawn? in movies, a newlywed couple (usually) building a nest is depicted as usually discussing where they'd put the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room etx. And come to think of it nobody says "we'll put the front door here" :D

When you're right, you're right! As a veteran of the "Let's design our house the way WE want it" madness, I've gone through reams of paper trying to get the exactly perfect house design for our needs. The very last thing I ever put in place is the Front Door. Mostly it just gets tucked in where ever it will fit. Like you said, stupid law that says there has to be one. Like the idea of a Triomph l'Oil painting that just looks like a real one. Be a riot to see people trying to open a door that isn't there!

Good Hub!

Some of these homes are colossal blunders on the part of the architect, builder...AND buyers! And I've personally seen many others. What were they THINKING??

Ha Ha, Jama!! This was great. Yes, I wondered how you would write a hub about a front door, but here it is, and wonderful, too! Unfortunately, we are the ninnies you elequently illustrated as carrying their groceries across the front lawn to the front door. We didn't design our house very well, and if I had it to do over again, ALOT of things would be different. But alas, as it stands, it is much shorter to carry the groceries through the front door to the kitchen than it is to go through the garage. And you know how I am about carrying my groceries in.

The house with the stairs to the front door was designed for Sylvester Stallone so he doesn't have to leave home to train for Rocky 37, coming out in Spring 2010.

And I'm not sure why you take the Christmas wreath down on Valentine's Day. That just makes the Christmas lights look silly in July.

That was so funny Jama - and yet so true! I guess more often than not, people tend to look at the exterior more from an aesthetic angle than a practical angle. Aside from the very pertinent observations, thanks for the laughs!

You wouldn't think Siting a House would be such a funny hub, but this one was a joy to read, JamaGenee. Aside from "great hub," my only comment is that "failure to think" is a common trait that extends far beyond siting houses. A few of my own hubs touch on the fact that most of us try very hard to avoid anything that looks like "thinking." Thumbs up!

Fantastic hub... I will be using some of your advice.

-Nicki B.

What interesting ideas. You are right about the door placement, especially in these new homes they are building now.

I remember when I was looking for my current home, I visited a home that had a step-way like the one in the photo. I took one look at that and said, forget it. The realitor wanted me to go in, and I said, no, that there was no way I was putting up with that type of entrance construction. She didn't seem to understand, but maybe that's because she was a lot younger than me.

uh-oh! **hollers** Jamaaaaaa!!!! Teresaaaaaa!!!

I never truly thought about the placement of a door , but 9 out of 10 times it is rarely used. I love the home that is for sale, but climbing those steps and not even a plant out front is to sterile for me. :)

I'd like to join the soon-to-be aesthetic/philosophical thread on the front door placement, but sadly I have seen this so many times as well. As someone into real estate, I've had my share of scratching my head at 'orphan' doors, as you mentioned, and other less than stellar door positions. Good hub.

I'm into property auctions and sadly I've seen many houses with ill-placed front doors auctioned off. At some point it would seem to make sense that the contractors and architects may have felt obligated to put in a 'door' on the plans, and only later call it 'front'. What do you think? :D

Great hub, Jama. Now how do we get the idiot builders (rarely are trained architects involved any more) to read it?

I've been appalled for years at what has happened to neighborhoods. When I was growing up, homes were lovely and simple if small or lovely and grand if big. They were not ugly. Architects in those days were educated in both sound and aesthetic building techniques, as well as the history of architecture through the ages.

Builders today are simpletons who have all the design ability of a one-year-old with an Etch-a-Sketch. They haven't got the first idea of what does or doesn't work. When my mother was well, we used to drive through new neighborhoods here in Fresno. Almost every time, Mom, whose father (my beloved grandfather) was a highly respected architect in Portland, Oregon, would say to me, "Thank heavens Grandpa didn't live to see this. It would have killed him."

Some of the front doors and their absurd surrounds look like portaloos. Other times, they remind me of nothing so much as concrete mausoleums. Many homes look as if the elements had been blown in place by a cyclone. I have literally seen Spanish roofs paired with Japanese doors and Alpine A-frames rising above ramblers and ranches. Most of the time you can't even put a name to the mess. Perhaps it should be called Fresno Freak or Central Valley Violence. Except that it's everywhere these days.

We need a great aesthetic renewal in this country. There really is no excuse for allowing the building of monstrosities, no matter how large or small, to continue.

None of those I mentioned were custom-built either. These hideous piles are poured from the local 'Lacking-All-Artistry-and-Functionality' builders' kits. (LAAF for short - if you are prone to laugh while crying.)

To attempt to make them look 'custom,' a word that is now synonymous with bad taste, one will be covered in a cheap rock face and sporting an Italianate fountain; another has windows cut in bizarre shapes and sizes in every wall; and a third boasts a Southern plantation portico which dwarfs the front door of a home otherwise lacking any plantation features whatsoever.

As I say, building by cyclone. Wherever it lands, it sticks, and no one - not builders, buyers, or city planners - notices or cares. Your example above fits right in. Apparently 'form follows function' has followed the dodo into oblivion.

My parents' house has a completely useless front door. It's a gorgeous door, with a lovely porch, and opens into a small hall with the kitchen on the right and the sitting room on the left. But the door weighs ten tons (a guess) and the key alone must weigh a good couple of pounds (it's HUGE) so it's never, ever used.

They didn't have the choice of moving the door, which is about 700 years old (-:

Let's see?!? Front doors should be on the front. With new construction the garage is the point of entry for the owner as you have stated. If you have a detached garage you should incorporate a breeze way for entry through the rear at the kitchen and/or breakfast room. The front door is for the look. Have you not driven down a street and been impressed with double 8 foot doors? Granted not all front doors have easy access, but that is because the buying public wants communities with no driveways in the front of the home, which forces the construction of alleys - which are very unsafe. Builders and developers want to sell homes and lots and try to produce what the buying public wants in most cases. You do make some legitimate points, and I like your writing. You can design a foundation for most soil conditions with a post tension foundation. It is almost impossible to redesign most homes after the foundation is poured because the plumbing is already in place and you do not want to jack hammer a lot of your foundation. You do want windows faceing north and south because the sun rises and sets east and west. This will minimize the amount of direct sun light.

Some of us builders do care about quality of life and we do talk to our buyers about how they plan on living in their home and about how they might live in them in the future. Thanks

Never thought about the front door this way lol

Our front door is actually used by all of our guests unless we specifically tell them to park on the side of the house with the garage and come in that way. You had me smiling with your clever wording and sense of humor. It is true that sometimes builders do not do the sensible thing when it comes to placement of a front door. Voted useful and funny.

We have actually always parked our cars in our garages over the years and leave them down for security purposes. Thus our front door with sidewalk leading to it is always used. To reach our back door, one would have to go through the gate in the wooden fence and no one enters there except for the monthly meter readers who come and go. Many people seem to use their garages for storage...especially in Houston where there are commonly no basements and the attics are like ovens in the summer months. Will be awaiting your hub on the subject! :)

The photo of the house with all the stairs made me laugh. The very first house I bought (with Wonderful Husband) had a flight of steps to the front door. We were so naïve we thought it looked picturesque. We soon learned it was almost worthless. At least we knew that if the door bell rang it was probably Jehovah's Witnesses.

Jama, in my older home, we use the front door all the time. but I like the idea of a mud room or coming into the kitchen when you are lugging a lot of groceries. I hate the front doors that sit off to the side and it's all about the garage. A front door should be pretty and welcoming.

regarding the house with all the steps to get to it, I know a lot of older neighborhoods with much the same sort of thing. In some cases they had alleys in back to approach by car. The real problem was how to mow the lawn.

I think front doors were used more in the days when I was growing up. Visitors would usually come to the fron door but kids were instructed to come in the back door and not track up the house. Garages were usually at the back of the lot, so those parking in back would use the back door.

We don't use our front door any longer since we put a side door in.

We were forever walking around carrying things, the long way round. We just knocked out a window and put in a door.

My pet peeve is sinks. They seem to lean one way or another allowing water to pool. Or the tap is too far back or forward.

Why don't builders think 'Useability' first?

I really related to this article because I know many houses that were designed poorly in this way, without any consideration to the relationship between the garage and the front door. Without giving thought to how far people have to walk to get to the front door is ridiculous. I have friends who always use their side door or rear door for that reason.