Continuing heritage appeal
The entrance door market continues to evolve as homeowners personalise their doors. Kerry Blackford, head of product at ERA, explores the revival of heritage style entrance doors and the latest products and finishes.
For homeowners, achieving real kerb appeal is more important than ever before.
Where once the interior of a property presented itself as the main opportunity to embrace latest trends, the home improvement boom of the last 18 months is continuing to encourage individuals to search for new and effective ways to make their house stand out from the rest of the street.
In recent years, achieving a contemporary aesthetic has been extremely popular, with modern composite entrance doors in anthracite and black shades, featuring large panels of glazing and vertical pull bars, becoming household favourites.
While these contemporary styles have been in high demand, we are also seeing the return of heritage influences, as homeowners opt to recreate more traditional designs that reflect particular design periods. Often in timber or woodgrain-effect finishes, colourful traditional doors with period-inspired hardware are becoming increasingly popular. Thanks to modern technology, individuals are choosing fresh takes on classic door designs, with low maintenance requirements and superior standards of security and performance.
As door manufacturers continue to invest in bringing designs to market that follow the latest trends, it’s important to offer high quality, style-appropriate hardware to match. By working with suppliers that offer a comprehensive range of suited products in heritage-inspired finishes, door specialists can achieve a competitive edge, giving their customers more design freedom and helping them create a classically inspired aesthetic.
Door knobs and knockers in traditional designs are popular with individuals looking to add their finishing touches to a heritage style entrance door. By offering heritage-inspired door knobs, bull ring and spire knocker styles, combined with authentic-inspired finishes, fabricators can ensure every aspect of the door consistently reflect the same aesthetic, while still meeting each customer’s specific demands.
For example, Fab&Fix’s new Forged Black and Hardex Pewter range replicates the look of traditional forged black iron and aged pewter hardware. The modern manufacturing process means Fab&Fix can engineer interlaced hammered patterns that deliver a surface finish which, combined with a matte black or pewter base, creates an eye-catching and authentic visual appeal associated with classical styles dating back to the 1800s.
The unique finishes are available across a complete portfolio of suited door hardware, including the above door knobs and knockers, in addition to Regal, Monkey Tail and Noble door handles and Architectural Letterplates.
Supplied with colour coordinated screwheads, even the smallest details reflect the authentic style of heritage properties. The door handles are also supplied with long baseplates with screw positions to suit a wide variety of locks, supporting fabricators in creating a period aesthetic across a diverse portfolio of entrance door types.
By offering a choice of hardware like this in a coordinated finish, door manufacturers can fulfil homeowners’ demands for personalisation and help them to achieve the heritage style. This mix-and-match service, with each piece designed to work in conjunction with one another, can be taken a step further, with an extensive range of hardware also available for vertical sliding windows, casement windows and sliding doors in the same finishes.
With heritage style entrance doors positioned at the more premium end of the market, it’s important that style does not take precedence over substance, as homeowners expect the highest standards of finish and functionality.
The latest heritage finishes were developed to replicate the appearance of traditional iron forged hardware, but with all the performance benefits of state-of-the-art manufacturing. The unique Hardex patented finish undergoes 480 hours prohesion testing and is supplied with a 10-year function and finish guarantee.
ERA has already introduced three new Hardex finishes to its Fab&Fix range in 2021, and has new products in the pipeline for the second half of the year.