Exterior Door help

[lindyanne]

We are going to make our basement egress a walk out. DH has deferred ordering the door to me to just pick. Argh.

We will have a taller than normal but slightly narrow (each door is 2'8'') set of doors. This will be the main entrance in from our pool to use the bathroom when we finish our basement. The plans for that aren't done yet but more than likely this area will have tile and the wall on the one side will have a little bit of low storage and the top area will be used to display sports memorabilia. You'll have the home gym off to one side and then walk down the hallway to the bathroom and past that will be the bar/seating area.

Here's my conundrum - I can either get blinds between the glass, just plain glass or some combination of glass on top and 'solid door' on bottom or use privacy glass. I'm really leaning towards full glass bc this is our only source of natural light. However, I think the blinds look cheap and they're only available in white or light tan. However if we get privacy glass, I'm worried we won't have any way to block the light if we want to and he said things don't stay screwed in well to fiberglass.

Anyone have any experience, opinions, ideas?

ETA: Part of the reason I think it will look weird is bc we will probably end up painting the door a darker color and then will have white blinds inside.

[monarch]

We have the blinds inside the glass and love them. I don't think they look cheap.
do you need privacy there?

[hockeywife]

We have a Pella door with blinds between the glass. I dont think they look cheap at all, but maybe other people do?

[theintended]

I'd get a plain glass door and mount long curtains or blinds to a track in the ceiling.

[countthestars]

I personally prefer the look of full glass, but the blinds aren't terrible if you are worried about being able to block the light. Will you be putting a TV down there? Is there any specific reason you'll need dark, or you just want the option?

[lindyanne]

The blinds are basically the ones you can get for $3.50 at home depot. Maybe that is skewing my decision. I do love that they'll always be clean and we can either put them totally up or just open them for light. Although we don't "need" privacy there - it's somewhat below grade there won't be much that you can see right into - I will feel better having some privacy there bc my neighbors could probably look directly down into it from their second floor bc we're on a corner lot at a T intersection so the front of their house faces where the door is going to be. Plus just for security reasons bc it's "open" to the street and such.

[lindyanne]

Sept 26, 2012 8:55:51 GMT -5 countthestars said:

I personally prefer the look of full glass, but the blinds aren't terrible if you are worried about being able to block the light. Will you be putting a TV down there? Is there any specific reason you'll need dark, or you just want the option?

Yes, there will be a TV. We don't have the setup for the basement yet and it probably wouldn't affect it bc it's so far back and probably going to be around the corner a bit we aren't sure what we're doing yet. We have to finish this project to even get equipment/furniture in bc our basement stairs are so tight. We don't plan on starting to actually finish the basement until maybe the middle of next year so we haven't met with the contractor/designer too much on that yet.

[countthestars]

Sept 26, 2012 8:59:34 GMT -5 lindyanne said:

Sept 26, 2012 8:55:51 GMT -5 countthestars said:

I personally prefer the look of full glass, but the blinds aren't terrible if you are worried about being able to block the light. Will you be putting a TV down there? Is there any specific reason you'll need dark, or you just want the option?

Yes, there will be a TV. We don't have the setup for the basement yet and it probably wouldn't affect it bc it's so far back and probably going to be around the corner a bit we aren't sure what we're doing yet. We have to finish this project to even get equipment/furniture in bc our basement stairs are so tight. We don't plan on starting to actually finish the basement until maybe the middle of next year so we haven't met with the contractor/designer too much on that yet.

I would go for full glass then, because I like the look better and it doesn't seem like you will need complete dark in the area. If you do, you could always hang curtains.