Yes, it does. Could you keep the second front door as a fake, permanently closed, with the closet behind it?

What are "do station costs"? Or is autocorrect playing with us?

Agh yes autocorrect got me. Was supposed to say construction costs. Behind the second door will be a closet. We plan to use a door with glass in some way so to do another matching door that leads into the backside of a closet seems excessive. Could I get away with a window of some kind?

You have a totally symmetrical house and the off-center door looks odd and also not in keeping with the scale and proportion of the house. I would opt for a pair of doors: one could be fixed if you have, as you say, a closet on the right. I'm not sure about pairing a window with the door; further, what would you be seeing if you looked in the window?

I don't think the single door looks bad at all. There is nothing that says everything has to be centered or symmetric. I would go ahead with your plan; if you want to later, you can put something in the place where the second door might have been (like a seat, or hanging decoration). Renais

I'm looking at your front door, and the first thing I think is, move it over!
It does look odd.
Sorry, but it does.
If you really can't afford it, keep it the way you want it.
If you ever go to sell it, you will hear about it though,
but if it is your forever home, the home you will always live in, just let it go and have your coat closet and hallway.
It's your home after all, so do what makes you happy with it.
It's not easy converting a duplex, it's very pricey.

I think if you put something in front of the old door, it could look very nice. The off-center door gives you room to place a bench, and a decorative wreath above it that you can change with the seasons.

Well the house in its current form does not have that architectural detail on the porch roof and with it centered to the house, taking the eye visually directly to the blank wall makes me crazy. We are considering eliminating that detail altogether or perhaps we shift the center columns to the left a bit and create a new center focal point.

I would try deleting the pediment on the porch, using 3 generously sized round or square wood columns (brick piers look odd), offsetting the entrance walk and steps and making the first floor windows on the right a triple or at least wider than the pair on the left.

I'm not sure there is enough room on the facade for a full porch so consider making it less wide and allowing full second floor windows on the right and left.

You should either commit to symmetry or violate it with more than the entrance door.

Hi, It seems like it needs a "something" to restore balance after deleting the door.
1) A window like the one above it.
2) Keep the door jambs outside, fill space with a louvered door/wood shutters, in the closed position. Would be very effective if the rest of the house had the same wood shutters, but $$$ ouch.
3) a detail of some kind: a small brick niche/arch(got impression it was a brick place?), baker's rack with flower pots, wall fountain, etc. A diversion.
Casey

The front porch is an existing structure (and one of the main reasons we bought the house) so it will definitely stay. There were supposed to be double window-width french doors leading into the dining room on the right side instead of just a window but the architect forgot to include them in this set of drawings. The triangle detail centered on the house is a new piece that I'm not sure I like, at least not with the door in this position.

It is a 4-sides brick veneer house built in 1935 as a duplex.

One solution we are considering is moving the front door more toward the center, perhaps making it a really big one, and putting the coat closet directly opposite the front door.

I think we should consider moving the porch posts around some so they are more centered around the door. Feels like a cheaper solution than just about any other option.

I've included the floor plan so you can see what we are working with.

Changing the stairs will be the BIG expense. You should leave them alone. I'd want a gracious entry into a formal central foyer, with formal living area to the left, with the formal dining to the right and family room across the back. The living area could be used as a play room sure. Should be an easy enough thing to tuck a powder room under those stairs. Your design is doing things the more difficult and expensive way.

I don't suppose the second door could be kept and the closet be a walk-through mudroom?

Kid approaches doors. Kid thinks to self, "self, are you muddy? Do you have a backpack? Okay, go in door number two."

Hmm...maybe not.

I know an architect who also is converting a duplex to a single-family. The current layout is strikingly similar to yours and their stairs also will be moved to the location shown in your plan. I believe their plan is to center the front door.

We have a full basement too so we stacked the stairs on top of each other to save space. The footprint of each floor is 1400 sq ft and while I too would have liked a grand staircase of sorts it takes a lot of room and leaves dead space upstairs. We are doing a full bath (well 3/4 I suppose) on the first floor because we can only fit 2 bathrooms upstairs and we have aging parents that visit who might not be able to climb stairs in the near future. The idea behind the playroom space is that it can be used as a playroom now but could be converted with the addition of a closet to a 5th bedroom if need be for resale or just life in general. We don't have enough room to have the closet be useful as a walk through, it is only 24" deep and maybe 42" wide. Here is the upstairs.

Quite honestly this plan is pretty locked, on its way to the structural engineer as I type, so I am really just searching for solutions to the front door. We didn't see a plan with the front door until yesterday so I hadn't had a chance to think it through until last night. Not super pleased with the architect on the timing of this drawing.

The front porch is an existing structure (and one of the main reasons we bought the house) so it will definitely stay.

Can you post a photo of the current front of the house showing the existing porch?

See house in its current form. The screens are coming off the front and it will just be an open air porch.

Hi, Think of the space next to the door as a challenge. It needs something that breaks it up a little. I would trim that space out and paint it a complimentary color. Try to make it look like you planned it that way.
Woodbutcher

I agree with renovator. Change it to 3 columns, center the triangle detail above the front door. Now that you say that the DR windows are being changed to sliders, I think you will have enough non symmetry.

Here are some variants.

The simplest is the addition of a window which would replace the door (and could have an interior shutter to block the view and light into the closet)

The second and third are variations of what used to be done commonly when a house was converted from a two- or three bay house with an off-center hall to a four-or five bay house with a more central (but not centered hall), in the nineteenth century.

The downside of the 2nd and 3rd variant is that they remove another window:

Even a house like Mt Vernon exhibits this sort of asymmetry that developed as it grew--it still has a pleasant balance:

Also, the two different sized windows are going to be awkward, especially in the master bedroom. I don't think you would lose much by doing this:

If you're leaving the screens on the porch, why don't you just do one centered double-screen door, then you can leave the "real" front door off-center?

[sorry I missed the part about the screens being removed]

This post was edited by Oaktown on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 14:30

The graceful Mt. Vernon elevation is a perfect example of "as above, so below", IOW up/down balance; each off-center door or window has another opening directly above it, which lets the eye "forgive" the other discrepancies.

Have you considered what the difference in resale value will be if you don't center the door? I vote for centering the door otherwise you have a home that looks like it was once a double.....

Looking at the picture you posted a little closer why not just replace the two screen doors with one that is centered. The door going into the home can be left as shown.

This post was edited by Toolbelt68 on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 13:25

Thank you to @palimpsest for the mockup. Since there is already a door there it should be pretty easy to just pop a window in the opening and achieve the sense of balance I'm striving for. Quite honestly I have no problem with it being in the back of the closet and will just plan to do the same blinds I do elsewhere so it should blend in well. We want to keep any window openings we can because our ceilings upstairs are only 8 ft and even with the vaulting it will still feel pretty low. Natural light is the only way to make the master feel as big as it can. The small window upstairs is not a big deal to me but the one right next to it will be directly in front of the bathroom sinks and we love the idea of the natural light we will pick up from it. So since we really care the most about the one on the right side we need to keep the one on the left so I don't end up in another asymmetrical situation.

It seems to me that the plan needs to be revised. The center bearing wall needs to be retained where possible or posts shown in the bathroom, pantry etc.

As for the off-center front door, I would center it, add sidelights, add wood columns and find another location for the hall closet. It doesn't have to be next to the front door. I would try to create a more formal entrance to the dining room.

I would also move the door to the bathroom to the hall out of sight of the dining room for the comfort of guests. Is a shower really needed for this floor? I don't see a guest room.

How about this:
1. Center the door
2. Put the coat closet to the left of the front door, against the playroom wall
3. Shift the playroom door up so it's not right next to the closet.
4. Change the bathroom door to be on the left, and rearrange the fixtures accordingly.

An alternative space for the coat closet would be under the stairs.

I believe the offset door idea was from a desire to have a view down the hallway to the back of the house but I don't that is an important feature especially for such a narrow hall; the sense of a formal arrival space from inside and outside is far more important and a centered door makes that possible.

Can you bump out and build a vestibule entrance? You could have the entry door centered in the front of the vestibule to maintain symmetry. And you could have your offset door in the back of the vestibule to accommodate the closet.

Not this style, but the concept:

This post was edited by awm03 on Mon, Sep 15, 14 at 16:50

Not knowledgeable like the others on here, but yes it looks funny to me. It looks like you are putting a lot of $$$$ into this project. I would hold off going any further until this is resolved to your comfort level.

You definitely don't want to be saying in 5 years "I wish I had of...."

Trust me. This I know. (sigh)

Much delayed response but here is the final front elevation. As you can see we centered the front door and it looks drastically better to me.

What did you do with the interior floor plan?

This is what we ended up with for the first floor. We aren't crazy about basically walking into a closet but without giving up the very small utility closet and eating into the shower space we are out of options. Framing has started and we may have to steal a few inches from the pantry and bathroom to give ourselves more room to actually open the front door. The pantry now has only 1 door and it swings inward to avoid opening into traffic.

Just leave the door, make it inoperable/fake, and don't have any windows in it even if the other one does (this is commonly found in real duplexes). If the styles of the real and fake doors match reasonably closely, with the only difference being the real one has windows where the fake one has raised panels, it will look fine.

I like your final design for the exterior. The centered door looks much better. Could you possibly put a smaller single door on the closet that you're "walking into" when you open the front door? It could be off to the right so that you have a blank wall directly opposite the front door. This would allow you to place a very small half-round table there with a mirror above, or possibly a full-length mirror or some artwork. Just a thought. :)