My wife and I are in disagreement over our double front doors. She still loves them, while I wish that we had a larger single door with sidelights. The opening size when one door is open feels narrow to me, and can be challenging when carrying in bags of groceries or anything else bulky.

Apparently the previous owners of our house did, because they replaced them with one door and sidelights.

My parents had wonderful double doors, which were great for furniture, bride in wedding dress, wheelchair, paramedics, but they were not the most airtight.

If you have double doors, each one should be wider, not like the ones pictured. We had double doors in our previous house, and I think they present the most elegant welcoming look in most homes. I would definitely have them again if I were building a new house. No guests ever made a mistake, the lock is obviously the door used. That is not an issue.

Depends on style too.

We're looking at a solid single door 4'x8' resembling the one above,

opening into an 11 foot high entrance area and open three-level staircase.

But "welcoming" and "inviting" is not our nature!

I prefer a single door with two sidelites and rarely see a double door setup that complements the house.

When we built our vacation home we had double front doors. As you noted, only one was used 99.99% of the time. We did a renovation that included replacing the two doors with one and sidelights. Looks and functions so much better.

Have had both. Love (and much prefer) my double doors now.

We had double doors on our last house that we custom built. Did single this time. Air sealing, noise, maintaining 2 wood doors instead of 1.

At some point, they are overdone and not grandiose at all. And I didn't really want grandiose this time.

We never had a problem with people knowing which door to use.

I personally don't like sidelights or any glass at all. I am not really that private (but my wife is). The fact is that anyone can walk up to your front door. Obviously depends where you live but I don't really want anyone looking in my house that easily.

Given the delivery culture much of us have become - that is a lot of people looking in.

Anyway - just last night 2 clean cut women were at our door around 6. I am thinking it was political but glad we could see them and they couldn't see us.

I think they can look nice if in the right setting, I replaced the double doors in this house with a 6 foot wide x 8 foot tall glass pivot door and two glass sideights. Really happy with t, but that might not fit the style of your home.