Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

If you like the look of Shoji doors (wood frames with translucent “rice paper” sections), then you may consider using them for interior doors or closet doors in your home.

You’ve probably seen plain versions of these doors, but you can also find Shoji screens and sliding doors with decorative elements. For instance, this 7 foot tall door features the branch and blossoms of a cherry tree.

On the practical side, Shoji doors slide on wood tracks and operate smoothly and quietly. The cherry blossom door comes as a kit, so you can order it and assemble it yourself if you have the DIY touch.

Just under $600 from Oriental Furniture.

If you’re on a quest to install a beautiful front door that will impress visitors, you may have considered architectural metal doors, glass entry doors, or hand-crafted custom wood doors.

Here’s another option that, while also being made out of wood, is a bit different than anything we’ve looked at before. These wooden doors are sculptured, so each door is almost statue like with a three-dimensional aspect that visitors can touch if they want.

The folks at Custom Glass Doors have done several sculptured doors, including the tropical palm leaf model shown here. Others have featured eagles, cranes, horses, parrots, and more.

Keep a sculptured front door in mind if you want your entryway to stand out.

Can you install a pet door in a sliding glass door? Without creating some tacky homemade workaround lodged next to the door? A tacky door that lets in cold air during the winter and isn’t all that secure?

If you’re willing to make it a permanent installation, yes you can get a sliding glass pet door that works well, is energy efficient, and doesn’t interfere with the family’s use of the door.

This model from A1 Sliding Doors can be integrated into your existing door. According to the company, “Sliding glass patio doors with built in pet doors make it easy to let your pet out and keep your house secure by utilizing your existing sliding door and lock.” It’s also supposed to be more energy efficient than non-integrated models.

While this company works out of California, you can likely find outfits in your neck of the woods that will come to your house and install a custom pet exit in your sliding glass door too.

Inside rooms that don’t have any windows can be a bit dark and dreary, even with good lighting. And rooms with windows that look out at brick walls, billboards, water towers, and the like aren’t that inspiring either. If any of these situations describes you, perhaps you’ll want to check into Luminous Virtual Windows.

These window-esque creations “open up enclosed interior spaces with vistas of natural light and beauty.”

You can hang them on a wall or mount them into the wall like an actual window frame. Several styles of wood or aluminum trim are available, so you can get a window that matches the rest of the trim in your house.

From Skyfactory

In most home designs today, garage doors face the street and take up a lot of real estate on the front of the house. Most garage doors aren’t particularly attractive either. If you’re tired of driving up to that lack of curb appeal, then you can get custom designed doors that will give the front of your home a major attractiveness boost.

As an example of what can be done, check out these carved wooden garage doors from The-Wood Studio in Thailand.

Like carriage doors, they swing outward rather than lifting overhead (don’t worry–you can still find garage door openers that work with this style of door).

If you like the carvings and details in these doors, you can contact the company for more information. They do unfinished, pre-finished, and finished doors in numerous styles and can carve crests, coat of arms, logos, names, horses, flowers and other unique ornaments into their designs.

There are all sorts of ways to decorate your home, but you might not have thought about decorating your door before (aside from the usual temporary, tack-on holiday decorations).

What I’m talking about is installing unique kickplates or pushplates to spruce things up, AKA “door furniture.”

I’m not sure I’d care to have a tire track sprucing up my door, but it’s a pretty memorable example of this door furniture.

The “Tyre Track” is by UK-based Philip Watts Design, and you can order a piece that runs the full length of the door or a small version. It can also be run horizontally as a kickplate.

Great for any swinging doors you might have in the house that are in need of that race track touch!

A tall set of double entry doors can make a grand impression on folks walking up to your home, but you’ll want to make sure to have some equally impressive door hardware to match.

Puny pulls won’t do for oversize doors. But these solid, aluminum Wave pulls might just do the job.

Featuring fluid lines and rhythmic curves, the Wave pulls will complement any door. And you can even continue the theme inside the house, since the collection includes wave cabinet pulls.

Available in clear polished, clear matte, and black matte finishes, the door pulls can be mounted back-to-back on wood, metal or glass doors (or single mounted on wood or metal doors).

From Form + Surfaces

If you work the night shift, or you’re just a night owl who prefers to keep sleeping after the sun is up (*raises hand*), then you may appreciate these “black out shades.”

The temporary window treatments can be applied to block out daylight and also heat on a sunny day. No screws, nails, or other hardware are involved, so the blinds aren’t permanent and won’t leave marks around your windows, but you can use them for as long as you want to sun-proof a room. They can be hung or removed in a few seconds.

Even if you don’t work the night shift, and you like to get up early in the morning, something like this could be handy in a media room. Who wants glare on the tv screen when you’re trying to watch a movie?

You can get these Redi blackout shades in different sizes to fit different windows with the prices starting at around $30.

Redi Shade Original 36-Inch Blackout Temporary Shade

If you’re the kind of person who regularly loses house keys, or you just get annoyed at having to juggle through a ring of keys to get into the house when you’ve got arms full of groceries, then you may dig the idea of a fingerprint door lock.

You can find information on fingerprint door locks on the web or you can just browse “biometric locks” over at Amazon to get an idea of what’s out there. That’s where I found the iTouchless lock.

You can get versions of this lock that fit either left- or right-hand doors, and they hold up to 150 fingerprints in memory, so you can make sure the whole family (and then some) has access to the house. The iTouchless takes 4 AA batteries, which powers the lock for 15,000 usages. If you’re concerned that something might not work, there’s a backup keypad and lock for manual entry.

The iTouchless fits standard door lock holes, and is less than $200 at Amazon:

iTouchless Bio-Matic Fingerprint Door Lock

Once popular wooden screen doors are making a reappearance, and it’s no surprise since they’re so much more attractive than vinyl or aluminum doors. And if you’re going to spend the money for a wood door, then you’ll want some attractive hinges to go with it.

These vintage hinges are specifically made for screen doors and feature a self-closing aspect, so you don’t have to worry about the kids leaving the door open and letting mosquitos and flies into the house.

The hinges are made from sturdy cast iron and feature an ornate design that will add an upscale look to your doors.

Available for $30 from Van Dykes Restorers