Mr & Mrs Thornton have lived in their 1830s cottage in Cowling, North Yorkshire for 20 years and recently decided it was time to change their wooden front door.
“We originally had a uPVC door which we since changed for a wooden door as I never did like the feel of plastic,” Mr Thornton told us. “Although I liked the feel of our wooden door, it swelled and contracted with the seasons, I was forever painting it to keep it looking smart and it would rattle as the traffic went past on the main road. The door didn’t feel very strong and we never felt truly secure.
“I turned 60 this year and over the past few months we’ve been making lots of improvements to the house – new windows, carpets and central heating, new flagging and new fences. My wife and I want to get everything just right for two reasons – firstly so that the house is a real investment for our children to inherit and secondly because we’re both disabled and spend a lot of time at home, we want to be comfortable. We don’t want to be tackling DIY projects into our 70s so we’ve been working our way through the house, making improvements across the board.
“We decided to change the front door within this first wave of home improvements and set about looking for something that would be solid, pleasing to the eye, in keeping with our period property and with top of the range security features. After much research and deliberation, we decided to go for the Solidor Flint with a small bullseye window. We’d had an excellent experience working with Aire Valley Glass in Keighley on properties we’ve owned previously and so we asked them to come to measure up for our new door.
“The customer service from Aire Valley Glass has always been brilliant, they’ve looked after us whatever has happened – they’ve even been out to us to make repairs on the same day as we’ve reported a problem. The fitter who came to install the new Solidor was very good, very attentive, made no mess and told me everything I needed to know. He even wasn’t phased by me hovering over him making sure the job was done well, it was absolutely perfect.
“The new front door looks and feels solid, the security features are first-class and inside the house it’s much quieter. With its traditional design and appearance of real timber, the modern materials of the Solidor don’t look out of place on our 1830s home and on a sunny day the bullseye glass throws a beautiful rainbow of colours into our hallway. I would highly recommend a Solidor front door to everyone.
“Our village is high up in the Pennines where it can be very cold and wet but our home now feels warm and secure – it’s just lovely,” ended Mr Thornton. “I remarked to my wife the other day that we don’t seem to go out much anymore – she said that’s because it’s so comfortable at home!”.