Would I be insane to do this?..

Hedge

Hedge

Hedge

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We live in a 1930s semi and it has an arched front doorway with a wooden stained glass inner door.

The arch has a pvc front door which was there when we moved in.

This leaves a "porch" area which is only about 18 inches deep and it kinda annoys the hell out of me. Everyone loves these 1930s front door but I'm struggling to justify keeping it.

Would I be insane to rip the original inner door out and then replace the arched doorway with a nice new one. This would give me a larger hallway.
 
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I take it you have to open both doors as the exterior door occupies the whole vestibule space when going through.

I've got a similar situation, although I never felt it was that annoying to remove both and have one. Our exterior door is still solid wood though so it looks the part.
 
sja360 said:
I take it you have to open both doors as the exterior door occupies the whole vestibule space when going through.

I've got a similar situation, although I never felt it was that annoying to remove both and have one. Our exterior door is still solid wood though so it looks the part.
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Yeah I have to open both doors to get into my main hallway. The space I between is kind of dead. It has a door mat and nothing else. I'm conflicted because I love character in older properties and I'd probably think other people were crazy to remove such things.

On my street it seems most people have an outer and inner door. If I'd seen others rip them out I think I would feel less guilty.
 
Hedge said:
Ours isn't quite as large as this image but it shows what I mean.

https://images.app.goo.gl/n4pEDLQgpvnRzzoRA

Retaining the original door is the most common choice but I can't help feel it just makes coming in and out of the house more of a faff.
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One thing to remember is that these vestibules serve a purpose. They act as a barrier between the house and cold. This mattered more when the houses were first built, as I doubt their insulation was as good as ours is now. But if you remove the internal door, you will still probably find the house is cooler during cold spells.
 
Another reason I can see for keeping it is you'd be able to look right into your house assuming it's like the link you've shown with side glass either side of the door.
 
I had a feeling that might be the general opinion.

I think I have just grown annoyed by the door. It had 80yrs worth of paint on the inside and I spent weeks stripping it back and repainting it, only to find I had totally lost any love for it.

We have a young baby daughter so we tend to keep the pram in the hallway. This pretty much takes up the entire space between the door and the staircase and if the inner door wasn't there I would feel the space would be far more usable. Obviously a pram is only going to be a short term thing.

I shall take peoples advice and leave it as it is :)
 
a1ex2001 said:
I’d chuck the upvc one before the 1930’s one!
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The original door is nice to look at. But it's also seriously drafty, the glass is in need of maintenance (some leadwork failing and some panes cracked) and it has zero resistance to a break-in should anyone feel the need.

Character is part of the reason I love older houses and I'm conflicted on this door and a window I have on my landing.
 
Hedge said:
Character is part of the reason I love older houses and I'm conflicted on this door and a window I have on my landing.
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Does it have a letterbox? Have you tried poo'ing through it? (sorry - Am aware this isnt GD but couldnt help myself!)

My 2p - Keep it. 2 doors acts as a serious thermal buffer, its like double glazing. And character is good.
Invest in making it good, either time or some £. Get it painted a really nice colour and sort the leadwork out. Add some lighting (inside the porch) so that the stained glass really shows off (to you) when you are in the house. Turn it into a feature!
 
leave it as it is but perhaps try and make more use of the space in the porch area. Perhaps some shelves for your shoes and somewhere to put your slippers/coats?
 
I feel your pain. Im in the process of doing something similar. The porch space used to drive me crackers, to small to be useful but big enough to dump junk in. Having a door in the arch means no shelter from the rain either

Ours is all upvc so I'm not removing any original features, if anything i'm restoring back closer to the original. Our house was never designed with a door in the arch, we currently have a brown upvc door in (yummy!) which was here when we moved in.

I've insulated the void in the ceiling above the porch to ofset some of the heat loss hue to moving the door back. I also put some downlights in on a sensor while i was at it. Should look nice once the new door is fitted in a few weeks
 
stigggeh said:
I feel your pain. Im in the process of doing something similar. The porch space used to drive me crackers, to small to be useful but big enough to dump junk in. Having a door in the arch means no shelter from the rain either

Ours is all upvc so I'm not removing any original features, if anything i'm restoring back closer to the original. Our house was never designed with a door in the arch, we currently have a brown upvc door in (yummy!) which was here when we moved in.

I've insulated the void in the ceiling above the porch to ofset some of the heat loss hue to moving the door back. I also put some downlights in on a sensor while i was at it. Should look nice once the new door is fitted in a few weeks
Click to expand...

I'd be interested in seeing some pics of your project :)

I'll give mine some serious thought once I finish some more important jobs .
 
My parents in their 30's semi ripped their internal door out and it is (IMO) much better. Note that this is after a porch was built though and so they still have 2 doors into the house.

It did however create a small step about 2 inch high. The walls are also not level with each other and step about. So check whether your floors, walls and ceiling are consistent between the two areas first.
 
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