Stable doors are not just for horses

When you think about it, the front door of your home is all that passers-by can see to distinguish it from the other houses around it. Otherwise it is just a long row of bricks, and terraced houses in particular can look like one long wall full of windows. For this reason it is always nice to have something to distinguish your home.

Perhaps the most socially acceptable way to present your house as interesting is to coat it with fairy lights come Christmas time. It can seem that each year every house is a little more garish than last year, with more lights, more noise and tackier ornaments. Regardless of this however, it can also be great fun competing with the neighbours in this way, and if you really do not care what the naysayers think and just want to be a little different, there is nothing stopping you.

There are two problems with this, however. The first, and most obvious, is that Christmas comes only once a year, and in reality you only have just over a month in which to deck your house with lights. The second problem is that once the lights are up, there is nothing you can do to hide them if you get fed up of them, unless you want to get the ladders out and spend a day taking them down, which, in the cold, dark British winter, is something you probably want to avoid.

There are more practical, quirky things that you can use to make your house a little different. One thing that has come back into fashion in recent years is stable doors; that is, doors that open at the top and bottom separately. No longer the exclusive province of caravans and the like, it is becoming more acceptable to have them on your house.

It is tempting to see them as a novelty, and just as something different; but this is not the whole story. They are also incredibly useful when it comes to answering the door, collecting the post, and keeping an eye on the kids while they play outside.

They also come with all the advantages of other composite doors, which includes increased energy efficiency, much improved security, and interesting designs which are just not possible with traditional wooden panel doors; because when it comes down to it, something different that makes your house stand out does not necessarily mean something tasteless and unattractive.