Which would you do first?

Our house needs everything and we're slowly getting to the end of our major remodeling. In the process of doing our master bath/moving laundry upstairs. When that's done, we'll have 3 new doors (6 panel) and 5 old doors (flat) upstairs, and we will either have to repaint the entire upstairs hallway or do significant touchups (leaning toward the whole thing so I can change the color)

Doors/Mouldings -- We would eventually like to change all of the doors in our house over to 6 panel (currently pantry and downstairs bath are new, basement, garage and hall closet are flat). We would also like to add wainscoting in the upstairs hallway, down the stairway and in the downstairs hallway, and add new base/crown in our upstairs hallway. Especially if we end up repainting the hallway (which continues downstairs to entryway) it makes sense to do it now...

Front Door -- Our front door really needs to be replaced. It's extremely dated (had an art deco design on it which we pulled off) and we repainted it sloppily thinking it would be replaced shortly. It's flanked on either side by glass block that we hate, its drafty, and its hard to open. But in pricing out front doors we realized its $$$$ to install a door with sidelights.

On one hand the doors/mouldings are "extras" while the front door is more functional, but it seems like its more practical to do the inside stuff at the same time. Whatever we don't do now would likely be done within the next year. Or we could do the doors and then wait on wainscoting and crown...

Thoughts?

Message edited 11/11/2015 5:26:57 PM.

Re: Which would you do first?

I would change the door first. It will change the whole look and feel of the house!

Which would you do first?

well, if you do the front door, don't waste your time finishing up/touching up the hall just yet.

IMHO, the front door can cost significantly more than the other stuff depending on how much you're spending on the side light unit. Also its not a straight forward swap with having glass block sidelights. you don't have to spend a fortune on the door/sidelight combo, but depending on where you go, and what they steer you towards, it can add up.

We went with a Masonite brand steel door and side light set up with 3/4 glass for about $1600. it looks nice. Yes, I probably would have preferred fiberglass, but the fiberglass one was a lot more I think double the cost.

It depends on how "under construction" your hallway is in reality, if it were me, I'd think the "right" answer is to finish the project you started which is replacing the doors and finishing the hall. Although I'd probably be itching to get the front door done in the spring.

Re: Which would you do first?

I would do the front door first.

Message edited 11/13/2015 10:51:30 AM.

Re: Which would you do first?

Message edited 11/12/2015 11:31:33 AM.

Which would you do first?

I would go with necessity. A drafty, hard to open, door, would take priority over cosmetic, in house doors.

Re: Which would you do first?

You're coming into the winter months now. Having an efficient front door is important. It's save you money on your heating bill and it's much more of a necessity than cosmetic interior doors. I would 100% do the front door. It'll also make a big difference for curb appeal on the house.

Which would you do first?

I have something similar to
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Milliken-Millwork-64-in-x-80-in-Heirloom-Master-Decorative-Glass-1-2-Lite-Painted-Majestic-Steel-Prehung-Front-Door-with-Sidelites-Z014745R/206634895

but its 3/4 glass. However, the install was wrapped into a large project, so I don't have a breakdown. Ours was straightforward since basically we were reframing the whole downstairs and residing the whole house... so the actual installing the door wasn't the big part. Yours doesn't seem as straight forward, but I dunno.