The Definitive Guide To Pacific Northwest Door Design

Are you based in the Pacific Northwest, and looking for a new entry door--but you have no idea where to start?

You're not alone. We noticed there isn't a resource that combines door design guidance with all the unique characteristics of different regions around the US. And we'd like to correct that. From architectural styles to the surrounding environment to materials to weather and maintenance considerations, where you live powerfully impacts what your front door should look like. 

To make the design decision that works best with where you live, you’ll need to understand the dominant architectural styles here in the Pacific Northwest, as well as what wood species suit both the climate and aesthetics of the region.  

Main Architectural Styles In The Pacific Northwest

Craftsman/Bungalow

• Enormously popular throughout the region, particularly in Seattle and Portland’s older neighborhoods.  
• Key features: Low-pitched gabled roofs, wide front porches with tapered columns, exposed rafter tails, and rich wood detailing inside and out. Built heavily from the 1900s through the 1930s, and revived again in the 1990s–2000s. 

Victorian/Queen Anne

• The oldest surviving residential style in the region, dating to the late 19th century boom years following the railroad's arrival.  
• Key features: Ornate trim, turrets, wraparound porches, steeply pitched roofs, and decorative gables. Many have been beautifully preserved or restored. 

Colonial and Tudor

• Popular from the 1920s through the 1950s and again in the 1980s–90s, these styles brought East Coast and European influences to PNW suburbs.  
• Key features: Brick or stucco facades, symmetrical layouts, steep rooflines, and in the case of Tudor, half-timbering details. 

Mid Century Modern

• A strong presence thanks to postwar suburban expansion in the 1950s and 60s.  The region's timber industry makes wood-heavy MCM homes particularly distinctive here. 
• Key features: flat or low-pitched rooflines, floor-to-ceiling windows, open floor plans, and integration with the landscape. 

PNW Contemporary

• This label refers to more recent builds that often combine elements of other architecture styles. 
• Key features: large windows to capture views and natural light, steep or shed rooflines that shed rain, heavy use of wood (cedar and fir), stone accents, and strong indoor-outdoor connections. Designed to blend into the forested, mountainous landscape. 

Why Solid Wood Is Best For PNW Doors

From a design standpoint, solid wood is the best because it fits in with the surroundings. The Pacific Northwest is so well-forested that prominent use of real wood feels cohesive and aligned, regardless of architectural style. In fact, a home facade without a hint of wood feels out of place here.  

And from a longevity standpoint, true timber solid wood is the undisputed champion. Unlike veneered panel products, where a scratch is unrepairable, solid wood can be repaired, refinished, and restored over and over again. It is an investment that continues to pay off over time.  

Wood That Suits The Pacific Northwest Environment 

Over the twenty plus years that we’ve been making custom doors for clients in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, four wood species have emerged as both customer favorites and as our preferred wood species for the region. Here’s the shortlist: 

White Oak

Available in Plain Sawn, Quarter Sawn, and Knotty varieties, this is the go-to wood for the Pacific Northwest. White Oak’s natural water resistance makes it ideal for exterior applications in general, but especially in our wet and rainy home. Quarter Sawn White Oak remains our most popular variation because of its beautiful “rays” or flecks. These characteristic markings run perpendicular to the grain and are unique to White Oak.  

Black Walnut

Black Walnut is the preferred option for modern or contemporary style doors, while also looking perfect for historical homes.    

Douglas Fir

With its clear, straight grain and low density, Douglas Fir is a perennial favorite for large-scale projects like oversize pivot doors. This is as classic as it gets for the Pacific Northwest, since Douglas Fir is one of the trees that proliferates throughout the region’s forests, along with Western Red Cedar. Douglas Fir is uniquely versatile, looking rustic or refined depending on the design and architectural environs.  

Sapele

Last but not least, this wood has an auburn red color with shimmering streaks of gold running through the grain. It offers an upscale look that’s made for modern doors, while also complimenting Craftsman and Victorian style homes, particularly.  

Door Designs By Architectural Style: Our Recommendations For The Pacific Northwest 

Craftsman Doors

For this architecture style, we say "pair like with like." Craftsman homes look best with Craftsman style doors. That means classical rail-and-stile construction, with divided glass panels (or "lights") near the top. Our Savona design is a perfect example, and one of our most popular doors here in Washington. 

Pacific Northwest Contemporary Doors

One of our flagship designs and a RealCraft exclusive, the Peninsula door was made for contemporary homes. It's available as a standard entry door, but a pivot door version allows for it to be even taller and wider, heightening the dramatic effect.   

Victorian Doors

A traditional design works best for Victorian homes. At the same time, since these homes have a lot of ornamentation elsewhere, it's ideal if the door has less design complexity, to give the overall effect some balance. We'd recommend a French style door like the Colette, with true divided glass lights and wood mullions separating them.  

Mid Century Modern Doors

Clean, simple lines that allow your chosen material to shine through? That's what the MCM movement is all about. Enter the Tacoma door, with three narrow glass lights spanning nearly the full height of the door. 

Tudor Doors

Tudor homes are the most likely to feature rounded or arch top door silhouettes. So we recommend a door like the Callisto round top door, that offers a hint of a fairytale castle with its rounded top. Even if your door opening is not already rounded, we offer a frame-out kit so that you can install a door like this in a standard rectangular opening. We also offer casing for a completely cohesive final look. 

Entry Door Design Mistakes To Avoid 

Hardware Mistakes

• One of the most jarring false notes is choosing a hardware finish that doesn’t align with the wood species, exterior paint, and other fixtures like lighting. Many homeowners default to the same finish for everything, and that’s certainly the easiest, but you don’t have to have door hardware that matches the finish of your porch light. Here are some tips to keep in mind:
• Assuming your door is an inswing door, the hinges will be interior rather than exterior. So your hinges and interior handle should match the finish of whatever light fixtures or other hardware you have in your entryway. 
• Don’t mix a warm-toned hardware finish like brass with something cool-toned like nickel or stainless steel. It won’t look editorial, or cool; instead it will look mismatched.  
• Unlacquered brass will develop a patina, and this is by design. If you want real, actual brass, it’s important to accept that it reacts to human touch. The oil on your skin will cause any high-contact brass hardware to darken over time. For this reason, don’t choose unlacquered brass if you want your hardware to stay ultra pristine. But do choose it if you want your hardware to feel like it’s been on your house for a hundred years, in a good way.  
• Matte black tends to look modern. And because it’s been quite popular over the last five or so years, if you want your entryway to stand out, we’d say to choose something slightly different. Dark Bronze is almost the same, just a very dark brown, but that touch of softness looks more at home in traditional environments.  
• Traditional hardware often has curvature to its silhouette, and modern hardware has sharp angles. This is something to keep in mind especially for historic homes, where hardware that reads as modern can look jarring.

Choosing an inferior wood

In a region with wet winters and near-constant rain throughout much of the year, the wood you choose needs to be well-suited to a humid environment and finished and sealed well. An inferior quality wood, like poplar or pine, is not going to perform optimally in this region.  

A door design that feels out of step with time

This doesn’t mean you have to perfectly reproduce the original door if you live in a historical property. All it means is that your door should feel like it belongs on your home. An ultra-modern asymmetrical pivot door is too far away from the design language of a Queen Anne style Victorian home, for instance. If you want something more minimal, you can, but it should have bilateral symmetry if it's going somewhere historic.

Another thing to keep in mind is that door designs with glass (besides French-style doors) tend to read as more contemporary than all-wood doors. But the glass that you choose also impacts how historical or modern your door feels. Specialty glass like Seedy Reamy or Flemish has organic waviness that reads as Old World, while standard clear, reedy, or frosted glass is modern-looking. 

Regional Maintenance Considerations for PNW Doors

Weather Protection 

As you’ll know if you live here, it rains a lot. (Understatement of the millennia.) This means that moisture damage is the biggest risk from a maintenance standpoint for any exterior wood surface. As long as your door has an overhang, that should protect it from direct moisture contact. Where you’ll need to pay attention is the door sweep and threshold. The bottom of the door opening is usually the first place to show water damage.

We’ve addressed this vulnerability in our pre-hung exterior doors by using a white oak door jamb that prevents water damage. How does that work, you may ask? Since White Oak is naturally water-repellant, water will bead up and roll down its sloping surface, away from the door. Other door thresholds (also called sills) are metal, made with grooves and channels that actually funnel water towards the door jamb itself, accelerating moisture accumulation. We knew that with our made-to-order solid wood doors, that was not going to work. So we created a more suitable solution.  

Dramatic Changes in Sunlight

Because Washington is the northernmost point in the continental United States, this region has extreme differences in sun exposure through the seasons. The summer months have up to sixteen hours of daylight, while the winter months have less than eight. In practice, this means that South and West facing doors experience periods of intense sunlight (and a surface temperature that increases rapidly throughout the day) followed by intense darkness. If your door is not adequately finished or protected, these dramatic shifts can result in seasonal expansion and contraction, or even in severe cases damage to the door itself.  

Newer builds may not have an overhang or covered porch. If this is the case, you’ll need to construct an overhang to protect your entry door.   

Why We Still Build Here in Washington State

The RealCraft story begins with founder Don Rees, a Washington native who fell into building doors as a consequence of building custom timber-framed homes. You can’t put standard mass-produced doors on a home like that, so Don made the doors himself for all the homes he built. Over twenty years later, RealCraft doors are still hand-made to order onsite in Gig Harbor, Washington. A small team of craftsmen and craftswomen build our doors from true timber, in the same spirit as when Don began. We've never outsourced production to somewhere cheaper, and we never will, because our entire reason for being is to lead a return to craftsmanship—one door at a time.  

RealCraft is a leader in the door industry, with specialty doors available to buy online that can’t be sourced anywhere else with this level of American-made quality and end-to-end customization. We continue to be inspired by our surroundings every day. Many of our designs are named after the landscapes and places of our home state, like the Tacoma Door or the Peninsula. And we hope that whether you're a local like us, or from somewhere far away, that you've found some inspiration of your very own. Discover our complete collection of entry doors.