For a lot of people, a door is just a door. It’s one of those things you take for granted. However, when you’re trying to complete a project, or you’re designing the exterior look of a building, a door suddenly becomes one of your main focal points. Every detail starts to matter.
That’s for a good reason. It’s the first thing anyone sees, and it’s a crucial part of curb appeal and bringing the overall exterior design together.
With iron doors serving as the best option for many different reasons, we’re going to go over 6 popular iron door styles, and some tips to pick the right one, to help you.
Let’s get started.
1: Spanish-Inspired Iron Doors
Spanish-inspired iron doors have been growing in popularity recently for two main reasons. First, it combines the charm of rustic designs with modern design stylings that match the architecture of modern homes. This makes Spanish-inspired doors a great option if you like an old-school touch, but don’t want to completely redesign your home to achieve that.
Spanish-inspired iron doors are characterized by their iron scrollwork among a simple backdrop, and they are almost always produced in black or Earth-tone finishes to match the color palettes of their Latin origins.
With heavy Latin influence, these iron doors also match the architectural designs of many residential homes in areas such as New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. They’re not limited to those design styles, though.
2: Modern Iron Doors
The modern iron door is a design based entirely around simplicity, and it’s most fitting for front entryways. This design type is characterized by its heavy usage of straight lines with minor curves around the top in some instances. Despite being extremely simple, these iron doors tend to look elegant, and they match contemporary, modern, and even some traditional house themes, well.
This is the type of iron entry door you’re going to see most often. Not only is it the most popular option in residential settings, but commercial businesses also tend to opt for these types of doors due to their professional appearance.
In most cases, this is going to be your best bet unless you have a well-thought-out design in mind.
3: Contemporary Iron Doors
Contemporary iron doors follow many of the same design patterns as modern iron doors, but they attempt to produce a more “futuristic” design theme. That does two things. First, it makes the door stand out among other options, and it looks great in the entryways of more artistically designed homes.
Then, it also works as a sort of future-proofing. Contemporary designs are supposed to be trendsetters that somewhat predict the style tastes of the future. So, getting one today helps minimize the chance of having an outdated-looking door in the future.
The way that contemporary doors achieve this is by mixing traditional elements with modern design elements. So, you might see a contemporary door heavily designed around straight lines, but it might have scrollwork around the edges, or it might include embedded designs in the glass.
This can be a good choice for a lot of homeowners, but you should consider your home’s exterior design themes before committing to a contemporary iron door. The design elements can be dramatic, and that tends to clash with simpler home designs.
4: Shabby Chic Iron Doors
The term “Shabby Chic” was coined almost half a century ago, but the design style is surprisingly modern. Probably because it shares the same core design themes as contemporary iron doors.
A shabby chic door takes the same spiraling rustic designs of a Spanish door and combines them with flowers, cages, and modern-style straight lines to create a truly unique look.
This makes the shabby chic design flexible. It can look great on Latin-designed homes, rustic homes, or modern contemporary homes with ease. However, the design elements are a bit dramatic, and that means that it might stand out a little too much in simpler homes.
5: European Iron Doors
This is a popular iron door option that’s only really useful in one niche setting. It’s designed with a curved top.
Most iron doors are rectangular, and all the design elements fit within that overall rectangular shape. Since traditional European architecture utilizes a lot of curved-top doorways, European iron doors are designed to match that curved frame.
This makes European iron doors great for homes that stray from the standard entryway design, but you don’t want to have to redo your framing to accommodate the door. So, it won’t work in many American homes.
Curved design themes also carry through to the scrollwork. It tends to be curved and elegant.
6: French Iron Doors
French iron doors are designed with two things in mind.
First, there’s a focus on the view. A common goal of the French design choice is to allow the door to create a stunning view both from the inside and the outside. This is so guests can feel warm and invited as they approach your entryway, and obviously, you can see who is approaching your home.
The next focus is lighting. The overall design of a French door allows for ample natural light to enter the home; creating a warm interior atmosphere and reducing the need for electronic lights.
Both of those design goals are achieved with minimal scrollwork and abnormally large glass inserts.
However, there is a con to this. Since the glass is overly large with minimal iron scrollwork securing it, you might find that it’s easier to have an accident with French iron doors and require glass replacements more often.
Why Choose Iron Doors for Your Home?
Now that we’ve gone over several popular iron door styles, you might be wondering why you should go with an iron door in the first place. After all, wood, steel, and various other options are extremely common, and they seem to do fine for many homeowners. What makes iron doors stand out?
We can break this down into three main advantages that iron doors provide, and regardless of what design trend you go for, all three of these benefits apply.
Strength:
This is just common sense. Iron is far stronger than wood or aluminum. The actual metal parts of your iron door will outlast you, your children, and your grandchildren with ease. There is practically no form of damage that can ruin your iron door outside of extreme situations or excessive neglect. So, beyond replacing the glass upon an accident occurring, you don’t have to worry about replacing the door.
An iron door can keep taking a beating without a single issue.
Lack of Maintenance:
If you’ve ever invested in a nice hardwood door, or you’ve had a cheap steel door, you know door maintenance is a pain. With wood, you have to sand the door down, re-stain it, and hope that you don’t splinter or warp the wood.
With steel, the door is hollow. So, it’s actually a lot easier to permanently damage a steel door than you might think. That’s before rust enters the equation. You might be able to sand off surface rust, but the door will look damaged regardless, and if heavy rust sets in, the door is done. That means you have to spend quite a bit of time maintaining a steel door.
Iron doesn’t require any of that. It develops a patina that prevents water damage, doesn’t chip or splinter, and beyond touching up the paint, you shouldn’t have to do much at all to protect your investment.
Affordability:
Wrought iron is fairly easy to work with. Of course, a good door still needs to be sourced from an experienced, notable, craftsman, but it’s not a process that requires massive investments. This makes iron doors surprisingly affordable.
In fact, you can get a top-tier iron door with beautiful scrollwork and complex design elements for less than you’d pay for a mid-range hardwood door.
So, it’s not just reliable, but you can also enjoy a more luxurious door at a lower price.
Of course, all price comparisons are based on averages. There are many factors that can and do create exemptions across the board. Just keep that in mind.
Tips for Choosing the Right Iron Door Style for Your Home
All of the styles we’ve mentioned are great for various reasons, and homeowners are figuring that out. How do you know which one is perfect for you, though? With so many options available, how do you narrow your selection down to just the one door that will go in your entryway?
Here are a few tips to help with that.
1: Consider Your Needs
If you look in the section we wrote about French iron doors, you’ll notice we said that the lack of support from scrollwork combined with the abnormally large glass inserts that the design is known for makes it easier for you to break the glass on accident. Well, that’s something you’ll need to consider. Not only is that a possibility with designs in doors of other design types, but there are other potential issues, too.
Do you have kids who tend to slam doors or run into them? Stay away from French doors, and opt for something like a Spanish door. If you don’t want to paint a lot of nooks and crannies when it’s time to touch up the paint, don’t go with a contemporary or shaggy chic door. So on and so forth.
Think about the potential drawbacks of each door design and how they’ll mesh with your lifestyle.
2: Match the Design of Your Home’s Exterior
The look of your door can either greatly enhance, or greatly detract from, the look of your home. Primarily, this is an issue with exterior design. If you have a log cabin, and you put a contemporary iron door on it, it’s going to look ridiculous. That’s an unlikely and extreme example, but you get the point.
Whatever door you pick, you need to try to match it to the design of your home.
If you don’t, your home’s curb appeal will drop, and you’ll miss a great opportunity to make amazing first impressions on guests. This is especially crucial if you’re trying to sell a home.
3: Consider Different Colors
Iron doors are often black by default. However, you can almost always choose from a large variety of colors, because painting iron doors is extremely easy. If you absolutely love a specific design, but don’t think it matches your home well, try to see what it would look like in a different color.
If you already bought an iron door and started reconsidering it, this is also an option. Iron doors are super easy to repaint, and that can completely change their appearance.
4: Consider the Entryway
Throughout this guide, we’ve focused on front entryways a lot. However, iron doors aren’t restricted to front entrances. They don’t tend to be good interior doors in residences (they are good in commercial settings), but you can use them for basements, garage entryways, porches, and backyard entryways, as well.
While a specific design might not match the front entryway well, it might be the perfect choice for another part of the home.
5: Residential VS Commercial
The next thing you really need to consider is whether you’re buying the door for a residential home or a commercial business. Even some of the more residential-based doors we mentioned here can work exceptionally well with businesses such as restaurants, mom-and-pop shops, and other establishments that have a more traditional atmosphere. Modern iron doors are common in practically every larger commercial business.
However, the traffic each type of place sees is dramatically different. If you’re running a business, you want an iron door with plenty of security for its glass. You don’t want a customer to slam it once and send glass flying. Think of all the things that you might need to be prepared for, and that will help with this problem.
Source Your Iron Doors from Wholesale Iron Doors
Among the iron door styles we talked about today you will probably find the one that matches your taste and needs. However, regardless of which style you opt for, you need a supplier that provides cost-effective, high-quality, iron doors.
At Wholesale Iron Doors we bring you the best iron doors in a massive selection of styles at the best prices. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can order a custom door that fits your needs in terms of dimensions, design, type of door, and more.
Check out our selection of double iron doors and single iron doors, today.
