Front Door Obsessions

Some new door sketches.

Right now, my husband and I are into watching old episodes of Frasier while we eat dinner. And during a recent episode, Frasier gave a mailbox as a housewarming gift to a couple of his friends. He then went on to explain the importance of his gift by saying, "a mailbox is a house's handshake."  Now I don't know about you, but I think that is extremely hilarious and totally true!  

While I was in Philly this past week, I was so into walking around and just looking at the architecture. Here in sunny Florida everything is pretty modern. It's a very rare occurrence when you run into a building that's been built before 1950. So I found myself really inspired by the differences in little things: brick patterns, windows, doors. And my hometown is a perfect place to check out some doors.  I grew up in a row home, which for those of you who don't know, is pretty much a bunch of houses all stuck together like this.... 

So walking down one block I was able to see about 40 houses.  That equals 40 front doors.  After awhile I was starting to think that you can really get a sense of the person living inside just by what their door looks like - is it white or wood, is it old or new, is decorated or plain? Here are some neat doors I ran into (let me know if you see yours and I'll knock next time. You can start up an episode of Frasier and I'll tell you everything I know about Floridian architecture post 1950).

I felt a little voyeuristic taking this picture as you can see a little into this person's house but I love the structure above the front door!

Bricks can be beautiful.