ᐅ Front door with or without a sidelight

I just measured: our door is 1.20 meters (3 feet 11 inches) wide and has a glass panel that is 25 cm (10 inches) wide, plus a side window panel also 25 cm (10 inches) wide. This makes our hallway wonderfully bright. The neighbors only have the glass panel in the door, and personally, I find that too dark.

I have a standard-width door fitted with frosted glass film. It’s a bit dark here, but not really bothersome. My trick is to distract from that with interesting lamps and tiles. Everyone who enters is greeted cheerfully by the beautiful floor tiles. In the hallway, you can definitely be bold with your decor. So you can still do a lot right if you choose a completely plain door without any fancy details.

The hysteria about having light-light-light everywhere really goes too far these days. Just pick whatever looks best to you. I would go for a simple, nice door that I like, without glass panels.

Snowy36 schrieb:

I just measured—our door is 1.20 meters (4 feet) wide and has a clear opening of 25 cm (10 inches)

Door width: Are you referring to the door leaf itself or the clear opening including the frame?

Georgian2019 schrieb:

Apartment doors in multi-family buildings usually do not have window elements, and corridors inside the apartments lack natural daylight.

However, they typically don’t have an upper floor that is accessed via a staircase in the corridor. I go up and down about 20 times a day (even more often with a small child).... Since in this case the staircase is directly adjacent to the living area, you don’t have to use the entire corridor to get upstairs.

Alessandro schrieb:

Usually, those don’t have an upper floor accessible via a staircase in the hallway. I go up and down about 20 times a day (even more often with a small child)... Since the staircase in this case is directly adjacent to the open-plan living area, you don’t have to walk through the entire hallway to get upstairs.

But it doesn’t really matter whether I walk through a corridor in an apartment with lighting fixtures or through a hallway and staircase in a single-family house—although, for example, in our case, half of the staircase already gets natural light from the upper floor hallway window.

The hallways in a single-family house are usually longer and are used more frequently due to access to the upper floor and basement.
In my apartment, I also have a dark hallway, and I have to say it gets a bit annoying to have to turn on the light every time...