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jasperjackson

What color should we stain a new front door to go with red brick?

12 years ago
We are getting a new front door - but we don't know what color to stain it!

The two house photos are what we have currently, dark brown stained wooden double doors with oval windows. The door we're getting is a mid-century three-light design with two side lights (Simpson door #1603 - photo from Simpson, side light #1701 not shown). So instead of a double door, it'll be a single door with vertical panels on each side, with the same stain color for both door and side lights. The third image is a sketch showing how it'll all look shape-wise.

Our question is: what color should we stain the new wood door?! It's Douglas Fir. Our goals:
(1) to make the house look more modern than it currently does (house built in 1985 and exterior unchanged)
(2) the door to contrast against the red-brown bricks
(3) the door to look like real wood

Because of #3, we're not really looking at paint, but stain gives us lots of options. We are considering a very dark stain, almost black, but we also think that might be a waste of a new wood door, and so maybe we should go lighter. The challenge then is #2.

What do you think? Please help! (By the way, the roof trim, the garage door, and the dark beige siding above the garage door are also available to be painted, if that makes a difference.)

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