A Guide to Styling Timber Front Doors

Quick Tips: Styling a Timber Front Door

1. Consider first impressions: What do you want to evoke when guests enter your home? If it’s warmth and welcome, then install door furniture with a playful shape, like a halfmoon or a knocker. Centre door knobs conjure a sense of whimsy. If your goal is to impress then a bold, robust pull handle in a large format is the way to go.

2. A hint of what’s to come: If the interior is traditional, then you don’t want a front door emblematic of modernity. Try a classic door knob for a heritage home, pull handles for a modern interior, or a door lever for a home that is something in between.

3. Materials matter: In order to create a unified visual narrative, match the materials and finishes of your front door with elements found elsewhere in the home. Brass pull handles in the kitchen or nickel levers on the internal doors might mean the same for the front door furniture, for example. Keeping things seamless like this creates a calmer, consistent feel throughout the space – subliminal, but definitely there. 

The Maybe Forever

A timber door with a traditional feel greets guests at this Cronulla home in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. The owners have resisted a primped and polished finish, and opted instead for a rustic stain that allows the natural grain of the wood to shine through. Iver’s Brunswick Lever with Chamfered Backplate works seamlessly, its Signature Brass finish complementing the roughly-textured wood with its naturally textural idiosyncrasies. 

Featured: Brunswick Lever on Chamfered Backplate

Home Barclay

The front door on this New South Wales South Coast home could easily have become wholly traditional, thanks to its central tongue-and-groove panel and natural, stained finish. But with a couple of key details – a semicircular panel and glass surround – modernity is brought into the fold, aptly reflecting the interior of this functional, elegant home. Iver’s Verona Lever, its long, curved, modern backplate framing the subtly turned handle, encapsulates this balance of old with new. 

Featured: Verona Lever on Oval Backplate

The Dulwich Project

Wood can be used to evoke a minimalist aesthetic, too. Here at The Dulwich Project in Adelaide, the front door boasts a Japanese-bent, with thinly cut, vertically-arranged slats making up its form. The only hint at further embellishment is the Iver Osaka Large Pull in Matt Black, its half-moon shape adding whimsy to an otherwise pared-back door. It’s a playful approach that adds warmth to highly designed space. 

Featured: Osaka Large Pull

Casa Clisby Way

The front door of Casa Clisby Way in South Eastern Sydney aptly demonstrates how much of an impact hardware has on the ambience of an entranceway. Like The Dulwich Project, Casa Clisby Way’s front door is made up of slatted wood, but the Baltimore Pull Handle utterly transforms its aesthetic. The door feels imposing and serious, suggesting a quiet grandeur. 

Featured: Baltimore Pull Handle