In the past couple houses I’ve lived in, I rarely if ever used the front door. I have either entered through the attached garage door, or as in my current house where the driveway comes in on the side of the house, my back door.
Are front doors in houses an outdated thing? The only time I open my front door is if someone comes to it, and that is usually Girl Scouts or other school fundraiser type sales, or occasionally a utility worker or the like will ring my bell.
I have noticed while going into other people’s houses, I usually am asked to go in through the garage. Or maybe it’s a midwest winter thing?
I think a door would be better placed if it were nearer the bedrooms (in case of fire, where you have to exit the house quickly) than in the front.
This poll probably doesn’t apply to apartment dwellers if you only have one door.
Same here. My driveway is on the side of the house. While I don’t use the garage for cars, I go in and out through the garage door (regular door, not the overhead door).
The only time I open my front door is when I’m inside and I’m looking to see if UPS left a package on the porch. I’ll also open it when the bell rings…that’s if I hear it. I should get a new bell since the current one has a very low volume. Many times I don’t even bother answering because…
Anyone who knows me will go around back and use the door in the kitchen.
I could definitely do without a front door. The combination of that and a 6-ft privacy fence all around would keep those pesky Jehovah’s Witnesses away. Maybe I should just keep a pile of Sinner’s Weekly Gambling and Porno Digest on the front porch.
I use my front door. My side door is behind the fence and my airedale jumps on me when I get home. I’d prefer to get in, let the inside dogs out, change my clothes, then let all the dogs back in. Then Ruffian (my airedale) can greet me properly.
The front door is there for screening purposes. Since everyone we know uses the garage door, a person knocking at the front door is probably someone we don’t know. Otherwise, it’s for Company. (such as Bunco ladies).
I even have a little plaque in the kitchen that says “back door friends are the best” . (No lieu, not THAT kinda back-door friends!)
I wouldn’t give up my front door, however. In the first place, being doorless is probably a fire hazard. In the second place, opening the front and back doors simultaneously makes a nifty breeze thru the house. Good for getting rid of teen-boy funk after they’ve been flopped in front of the Idiot Box for 12-hour video game marathons.
My house has a front door and a back door. Since the back door goes straight to the backyard, we only use the front door.
My sister’s house has two doors, and one of them (from the living room) faces the yard and the street so I suppose it’s the real front door. However, it’s never had a porch or anything, just a little set of steps, so it acts as the side door. The other door faces the driveway and has a huge porch, so we use it (enters into a little mudroom type thing, then the kitchen).
I use my front door, almost exclusively. Not having (or needing) a garage kind of takes away the chance I’d enter using the garage door.
And not only do I use the front door, I almost never lock it! In fact, on many occasions, I’ve raced off to work, then returned at the end of the day to find it wide open. No worries, no problems.
A Minneapolis Newspaper writer advised newcomers that the food in that pot that your new neighbors left on your porch is called a “hot dish”, it is a form of welcome, and that you should return the dish to their garage door, or back door, as Minnesotans never use their front doors.
