By Kerrie Kennedy

Contributing writer

What’s the first thing you notice as you walk into a house?

Hint: it has nothing to do with what’s inside.

According to Coldwell Banker residential real estate agent Gina Maher, the front door is what people notice first.

“It’s where you make your first impression,” Maher says. The front door, says Maher, also provides an important clue as to what’s inside. “If it’s looking shabby, that might clue you in as to what the rest of the house might look like.”

Of course, there are always exceptions—the homes that are unappealing on the outside but are nice on the inside. But in this current real estate environment, no homeowner can risk making a poor first impression, especially when you consider that most buyers make a decision to buy within the first few minutes of walking into a home.

When it comes to curb appeal, it all starts with the front door, says Mark Muench, owner of Chicago-based Muench Woodwork.

“A beautiful front door is like a nice piece of furniture,” Muench says. “It can make a big statement.”

According to Muench, homebuyers are paying attention to the appearance of their front doors more than ever. In business since 1946, Muench regularly created such things as custom entertainment centers, bars, libraries and raised panel wall moldings for his customers, but by the mid-1980s demand for custom front doors was so great he began crafting them as well. Now it’s a large part of his business.

In fact, there seems to be a direct correlation between the cost of a home and the cost of its front door. The more homeowners spend on their home, say experts, the more they’re inclined to spend on their front door.

A basic mahogany front door runs around $1,000, says Muench, but many of his high-end clients spend upwards of $10,000 on their doors.

“I recently did a radius head door for a turret entry in Hinsdale,” he says. “That was around $12,000.”

Although the door may sound unusual, that’s the whole idea, says Muench.

“People are staying away from the expected and doing something a little different,” he says. Homeowners who are spending a lot of money on a house not only want to make a real statement with their front door—they want something spectacular.

The current trend in front doors, says Muench, is the use of a darker hardwood, either mahogany or cherry. After that, anything goes.

“A lot of people are adding special details, such as sidelights or transoms,” he says.

Larger doors (such as 9-feet-plus or double doors) are another way to make a grand statement. Other homeowners are using iron or metal work to embellish their front entries.

It may be money well spent. According to a recent study conducted by NFO Worldgroup, an independent research organization, an enhanced entryway can add as much as 6 percent to a home’s perceived value. The study asked more than 2,000 consumers across the country to estimate prices of homes costing more than $250,000 based on their exterior appearance. The added perceived value was as much as five times the cost of the entry system.

“It’s hard to think of any other upgrades to a home that could deliver a similar return,” says Therma-Tru doors vice president Jerry Oleshansky.

Another study also showed than an upgraded entryway can give a similar lift to homes in the under-$200,000 price range, increasing their perceived value $7,720, or 4.1 percent.

Even homeowners who can’t afford custom mahogany front doors might be able to upgrade their home’s appearance with a stainable steel or fiberglass door. According to Muench, those doors cost around $500 and have the added benefit of being nearly maintenance-free.

“You have to treat the finish,” he says. “That’s about it.”

Besides looking good, a front door should provide good insulation from the cold. Fiberglass, steel and a heavy wood like cherry or mahogany will all do the trick here in Chicago. Security is yet another consideration, although not as crucial as you might think.

“It’s easier to break glass than go through the front door,” Muench says. In fact, most home security experts recommend burglar-proofing such things as sliding glass doors, French doors, rear entry doors and basement windows before thinking about the front door.

The real security that a front door provides is psychological—it is the thing that separates our private selves from our public selves. Which might explain, says Muench, why some of the massive front doors he constructs seem to be missing only one thing: A moat. You never know though, that might be next.